A year later

“Will you choose guaranteed unhappiness or uncertain happiness?”

I packed my bags on a hot sunny afternoon and left, it was a week before my 25th birthday.

It was something I was reluctant to talk about ever since because somewhere inside it always pricked. It was also the reason I stopped writing because I could not write about anything else and it was morbid. Over time, my life got better and I stopped thinking about it altogether.

Now, a year later and a couple of days before my 26th birthday, I am ready to write again. I am ready for the happiness that is coming my way.

A lot have changed in the year that passed. I moved from a manager role on the clients’ end to a role back in advertising again, and left. There were a couple of drivers that motivated and gave me the courage to leave an industry that I always thought I was good at.

It was not the long hours and unpaid overtime, it was not how thankless my bosses were, it was not how whiny my colleagues were. I was fine with all that because I was fully aware of the situation before choosing to stick around. There was something stirring in me, something in the back of my head that was telling me that if I were to work that hard, it must be for a reason, for myself. The job was paying me a reasonable amount of money, it was more than sufficient to sustain my lifestyle of frequent visits to mid-high end restaurants, luxury skin care and makeup, monthly salon visits, holidays abroad and mindless shopping trips.

Even though I was not 100% happy and fulfilled emotionally, I kept convincing myself to stay on so I will be able to support myself and my ex clients gave me a lot of motivation because they were very fond of me.

Then I met a guy from an online dating site…