"If you could start your life all over again, what would you do differently?"
That question has been haunting me for weeks—clinging to me like a shadow that refuses to step into the sun.
Most people have simple answers. They say they'd follow their passion. Avoid bad habits. Become more disciplined. Spend more time with family.
Neat, tidy answers.
But for me?
That question only births more questions.
If I were to start my life again, would everything replay the same way?
The same chain of events, the same mistakes, the same quiet heartbreaks?
Or would I wake up on a completely blank canvas, free to paint something entirely new?
At this point, I always laugh—a sad, hollow kind of laugh.
Because who am I kidding?
No matter the scenario, my answer wouldn't change.
If I were given a chance to start my life all over again…
I wouldn't take it.
In fact, a selfish part of me wishes I never existed in the first place.
Why walk the same road again, knowing how much it hurts?
Even with all the lessons from my "first life," what guarantees anything?
Knowing better doesn't stop you from breaking.
Knowing better doesn't stop fate from serving you the same canon events.
There's this line I once heard in an anime—don't ask me which one, my memory is a mess—
but the character said something like:
"It is both a blessing and a curse to feel emotions so strongly."
And recently, I've never related to anything more.
People say happy moments make life worth living.
But what about the other moments?
The ones where breathing feels like work?
The moments where you feel like you can't take another step,
where you just need someone—anyone—to hold you,
to whisper that you're going to be okay.
Or even say nothing at all—just sit with you,
offer a hand on your shoulder, and let you cry until the pressure leaves your chest.
Well…
I'm a seventeen-year-old girl. .
Two loving parents, a family of five. Firstborn.
Second year in university.
And for most of my life, I was sheltered.
Private primary school—never more than twelve in my class.
in a single-sex school for three long, strange years.
Then university.
My first real contact with the "outside."
The unsheltered world.
And honestly?
I thought things were bad before university.
But university said, "Oh, you haven't seen anything yet."
I wish I could undo some decisions I made during my first year.
I wish I could rewind, correct, rewrite.
But a bigger part of me—the louder part—
just wishes I didn't have to exist through any of it at all.
Because deep down, I know these feelings didn't start in university.
They didn't start in SHS.
They were seeds planted long before—
back in primary, maybe even earlier.
So let's start there.
Let's begin from the moment I first stepped into the place that changed everything—
the day I walked into tertiary university
thinking I knew who I was.
I didn't.
Not even close.