My thoughts at The Water Lantern Festival.

Last night I went to the Water Lantern Festival. I heard so many people sharing stories about losing someone they love. Some of the stories really touched my heart, but at the same time, they made me think about my own life in a totally different way.

I haven’t lost someone I love, but I have carried a lot.

Being the first one in my family to come to America, all I ever wanted was to have my family here with me and build a better life together. But sometimes when you want to take care of the people you love, you don’t realize how much weight you are putting on yourself along the way.

Last night made me think that life pushes all of us, just in different ways.

Sometimes life takes something or someone from you. Sometimes it gives you so much to carry that you wonder how much more you can handle. But somehow, we keep going.

In one of my weakest moments, I had a thought that made me understand how someone could reach a point where they feel like they just don’t have the strength to keep dealing with all the pressure of life and the weight of their responsibilities.

I choose to keep going, not because I’m always strong. I keep going because I know that if I stop carrying what I have been carried, some of that weight will fall onto the people I love. And I don’t want to put that pressure on them. So, keep going for all my loved one.

I know all those hard moments are changing us along the way. Making us stronger, teaching us something, and helping us become a better version of ourselves. Keep going until we find our happiness. That’s hope.

But I at the same time, I’m turning another page, I don’t think happiness is something waiting for us at the end of all the hard things. I don’t want to live in hard moment and hoping for a happy ending. That’s not fun, that is making life so hard, that make me cry so many times, I don’t like the feeling to be weak, like Cinderella just crying and hoping the prince will come to save her life.

We have to find happiness along the way, appreciate every moment, everyone around us, make goals for our dream and achieve them little by little, create our happiness all along the way.

You can see love every where; In the little moments. In the people we love. In a beautiful sunset, a deep conversation, a quiet morning, or even one night standing beside the water watching hundreds of lanterns float away.

Life can be heavy and still be beautiful at the same time.

So keep going, but don’t wait until everything gets better to allow yourself to be happy.

Find a little happiness along the way. Collect all the little pieces of your mind, your heart, and your journey, until one day you can put them all together and see a big, beautiful picture that is completely you. ❤️