How not regretting anything

Awhile ago, I told myself that I would grow from my past adolescent self

into someone who doesn't go back and forth between decisions,

always a fence sitter,

and so indecisive,

that anyone who wanted to ask me of my opinion would simply

be just wasting their time.

-

I had no preference of anything as long as it meant making

and keeping the people around me happy.

I had no regards for my own safety,

I was oblivious to it.

I thought what constituted as a happy life

was to make the people around me proud,

to make them happy,

to do what I was being told

and pour every ounce of my being into that concept.

-

However, I learned the hard way that perspective is not true.

I always valued freedom,

I loved it more than anything else in the whole entire world...

although my view of the world at that time was narrow;

it was still full of hope and rainbows.

-

I've always been very reflective of myself, of the world around me,

much more of a passive and sentient being than an active one,

wondering what is my purpose in life, why do I exist,

will anything I do make a difference;

questions like those are ones I constantly ask myself.

-

I've lived with my life on pause many, many-a-times,

dropping all that is happening to me currently,

even when things are progressing and moving in the right direction

for once,

I throw it aside with reckless abandon.

If it is for family, I will do everything and anything for them,

because they are the one and only thing that is anchoring me

to This World.

-

But now...

Now that all my grandparents have left me,

Now that I've abandoned and been abandoned by all my friends,

I am alone. I am truly alone.

As alone as I was when I first came into the world

and nothing comforts me as much as that.

I regret nothing. I don't regret the choices that I've made,

I don't regret where I am now.

-

I don't do things against my conscience and I never will-

-THAT is the promise that I make to myself.

However, even with all that, all that hullabaloo,

I guess my only regret is taking into account how others see me,

how others perceive me, and what others say under their breath,

thinking I can't hear, thinking I don't listen, thinking...

that I don't remember.

-

It makes me sad when the major decisions that I made

will never be understood by others and were even

misunderstood by my family members for a time.

I quit my job last year because of my family's medical problems

and also because I felt like I wasn't progressing fast enough

in my career.

-

It came as a surprise to everyone, everyone besides myself.

I had been planning it for quite a while and had left hints,

a breadcrumb trail behind, sprinkling words here and there

to indicate my dissatisfaction of where I was at currently.

No more steady income for me and back to my parent's place

I go. The old neighbors that I grew up with, seeing me

from the window and the premises of the property

day in and day out.

-

The scorn but also good-intended questions pecking at my head

are one and the same.

The puzzlement and worry on their faces

as I become "one of the unemployed" again.

Days turn into weeks, weeks turn into months.

I am now knighted as a lesser being, the trash

that society needs to pick up on the side of the street.

-

They don't know my struggle though, they might never will.

But here I am, still silently trudging along,

trying to constantly change my circumstance,

trying to change the circumstance of my loved ones

because that is all that matters to me.

I no longer have to make it according to other people's standards

but to the standards of my own.

-

I have to remember and tell myself that this perspective of me

from the eyes of others, is only temporary.

I just worry about how it may affect my family.

No matter.

I will continue on this path I made for myself,

to bring forth a brighter future.