Your POV
"Congratulations!"
Said the neon green ass banner typed in an ugly font occupied nearly half of my phone screen, followed by a long passage I didn't bother to check. The biggest, most distracting one is always what's important, anyways.
Afraid my eyes were deceiving me or having a hard time telling the difference between reality and imaginations after being exploited over weird stuff I'd watched the past few weeks, I started rubbing them harshly, and the word still didn't turn into something else.
----
So I happened to come across this lottery-like logo design competition ad on the street, held by one of the most well-known publishing companies in the city a few weeks ago, out of boredom strikethrough: misery of living the life as a newbie pretty much jobless, me.
It looked a lot like a lottery notice, according to my logic, because I was sure no one would ever want to have anything to do with me. It might be considered morbid to some people, but that's how I boosted my confidence to ever participate – by suggesting that a chance for me to win existed, only if it's a lottery contest. I think it makes sense.
After many sleepless nights debating because I feared of losing, but at the same time also feared of regretting, one day, I finally decided to upload my design and let's say, I won. It's my first time joining and my first time winning – none had actually sunk in yet. I felt so weird.
"Ah, this must be because of the late hour." My eyes slowly riffled close, drifting myself to sleep.
The result was announced way earlier in the afternoon, but being the coward that I was, I chose doing many unnecessary things first until midnight, before finally checking the site.
----
The fact that adults only asked 'what's your occupation?' to other adults they met and then stopped there because they'd predict the details themselves, thus the other party only needed to nod was such a relief to me; a self-employed artist – how sophisticated when said, but what I did mostly was just tiring my eyes out with soapy stuff on a tiny-meeny screen. I drew too, sometimes, but it felt a lot like a side-job.
Almost 8 months had passed since I left my parents' house, but I was still barely able to afford my own electricity and water bills. I'd actually considered switching to the completely manual off-the-grid lifestyle, to be frank.
There's this one time in the early stage of this nightmare when I got numerous orders, but I wasn't aware they're never the recurring type. It turned out they needed my service once for a lifetime only then bye. Exactly the essence of being the self-employed, me.
It's so astonishing that I had to let go almost all the electronics I owned, including my sacred sketchpad recently, for the sake of life and its attributes. Me next – after my phone.
----
"SHOOT!!!" I had to personally send the physical version of my design in three days and it's already day three. Peeking at the clock, I whined, "Oh my God, what again-" Blood felt rushing from my feet all the way to my head, squeezing my brain, my hands were getting cold and they're slightly trembling.
I rushed to roll the thing as careful as I can, regardless it's rather impossible, slipped it into a tube then ran with all the sudden burst of energy I had, resulted from the anxiety derived from the fear of losing myself and my phone, hoping to quickly find something to get into.
And I did.
"Please... Please... Don't re-draw the winner... Please!" I kept uttering repetitive things in the car with a face looking at least ten shades paler, eyeballs darting around not knowing where they want to land, stomach twisting and heart racing with anxieties.
"You're our daughter— You're supposed to follow our decisions."
"That's always how it works."
"It worked for me. Trust me."
"You'll keep missing it if you keep opposing us."
Sometimes, I used to wonder if going exactly the opposite of what my parents wanted was what's hindering me in my life like a bad karma, though most of the time I knew I hadn't actually worked hard enough and/or I was never capable of all of this in the first place.
One thing for sure, they're always right – since apparently that's the rule; (1) parents are always right, (2) if they're ever wrong, go back to rule number 1.
The white-haired taxi driver suddenly broke the ice, softly, "I'm sorry, are you sure you're not supposed to come tomorrow? It's past working hours-" His voice faded at the end of his sentence. He's probably worried I'd mixed up my schedule or something, being not helpful at all to my already-super-tensed slash about-to-give-up self.
"N-no. Just, drop me there. Thank you."
The ride didn't feel long despite I was very rushed. It's either I was never rushed in the first place, or my fear of facing the reality is bigger, or both.
----
"Good luck!" He said, as he stopped the engine. He's basically pushing the 'melancholic mode' trigger button in me, despite his good intention, because those two words were no longer just words to me after I threw myself into all of this. They're now 'special' in a way that they're capable to hurt.
I felt hot in every inch of my face.
The images I was seeing were shaking, tears welling up in my eyes, my face started to look reddish bottling up the urge to burst into tears. I was taking quick breaths in between to keep them in there but it's not working. I tried looking up to the sky, blinking sometimes like I'd gotten something in my eyes when I was not, except for water, and the damn eyes still didn't want to stop. And to make it even better, the driver witnessed all that – worst feeling ever, because breaking down by yourself is the best feeling ever.
"Don't be too hard on yourself! There's always better opportunities in the future!" The driver yelled at my direction before he left, totally assuring the sappy me but make it the opposite. The ground felt like it's losing gravity while I was a barophobic despite I was never one.
Clenching my fists and my toes to keep my body from falling and thus combusting into dusts, I talked to myself, "He's right, it's alright to fail!" I was getting in the verge of choking on words. "Although, I never not failed in my career-"
----
"Career?" I snorted. "As if I have one."
Not only I had bad financial situations, bad time management, bad life, bad logic – but also bad pep-talks.
