Diamond

Jump to Comments

I think that if there’s ever a prominent part of my teenage life that I will remember 10 years down the road, it’d be how debt-laden it is, and perhaps the financial insufficiency that I experience, as have those around me.

But I’d have to say my debts were mostly self-brought upon. I could have just had my life like any other teenager, and spend my teenage years away shopping, going for movies and food, but I chose not to. I chose to invest all those money in music instead, leaving me almost constantly having not even a dollar left in my wallet.

And it is all worthwhile.

However, that being said, I cannot help but feel utterly helpless over my family’s financial situation. You know, today, because I owed my teacher tuition fees for about a week, I had to approach my father for money so that I could pay him. He gave me his card, and asked me to draw.

I drew, and subsequently, I could not help but feel an overwhelming guilt and indebtedness. After drawing just $130 from his account, what I saw was just $10.51 left in his ledger balance. It overwhelmed me on how crippled I felt, and how helpless I am to the family’s financial situation, yet I cannot do anything to help for I am still a student schooling, and also in a mountain of financial burdens myself.

Just before I paid my tutor, I had given my allowances all away for my theory lesson, and was contemplating on the fees I have to pay per month from now on, as well as where am I going to find the money to pay for my theory exams due end November. Yet I must never stop fighting, or else all my efforts will go to waste, because this is my dream I’m talking about and unless I push through, I’d never reach my dreams.

Because exams are over, I haven’t been getting steady sums of allowances. I used to get $60/week for school, totalling to about $240 a month. My theory fees are $60/month while my saxophone practical costs about $120/month. Therefore, it totalled up to $180/month. My theory exam fee is $134, and that now I am not getting any allowances, I am truly struggling to find a way to pay off that fee. Furthermore, piano lessons are starting next week and it’s going to go on for an additional $200/month, which is clearly not within my means but I am helpless but if I don’t progress in piano now, it’d be too late. Perhaps I can compromise to have only 2 piano lessons a month, totally to $100, but still it’d clearly be over the budget of $240/month (including saxophone and theory). I can do nothing much now but pray, and perhaps be searching for jobs. I do not know where can I find opportunities, because I am only 17 and still schooling under an A-level curriculum, so it’d be hard to get a decent job opportunity – because I still have CCA, and also studies to consider.

When I see my mother having to work so hard, yet having to face oppression by my father and still support the family financially, it pains me thoroughly to see that I am not of much help. It embarasses me as well, that I have to borrow money from my sister several times, because I could not pay off my debts.

Yet my debts, as I said earlier, were the result of my fervour for my dreams. But to put it bluntly, selfish, ardent pursuit for what I feel is important to me. Nevertheless, if I ever want anything to work for me, it is this passion that I must keep alive.

What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger, that like a diamond, I have to be cultivated thoroughly under pressure before I can ever be formed.

I can go through this, I know I can – I have to, because the best is yet to be. This is about my life, and no one else but God and I shall shape it.

3 Comments

Filed under Uncategorized