“You’re the pretty sunshine of my life.” is a line from My Sunshine, the OST of a Chinese drama adapted from Gu Man’s novel “Silent Separation”. The story revolves around Zhao Mo Sheng, a girl with a bright and cheerful way of looking at the world, and He Yi Chen, an aloof man who eventually finds himself surrendering to her persistent efforts to win his heart. To him, unknowingly, she becomes his sunshine. Even years after their silent separation due to a misunderstanding, he still keeps her in mind as “my sunshine”.

Seven years later, they meet again by chance in a crowded supermarket. The girl he remembers is no longer quite the same. The sunshine that once seemed to follow her everywhere has become covered by somber clouds. The woman in front of him looked like someone whose light had dimmed, carrying a gigantic uncertainty and scars from things she had survived along the way.

Perhaps that is why I have always felt a strange connection to Zhao Mo Sheng. Somewhere along the way, I think I became a little less like the girl I used to be. Life happened, one thing after another. And then, one day, I noticed that the person looking back at me in the mirror was carrying a burden she was barely able to bear. There was a permanent sadness lingering in her eyes. I slowly became someone I barely recognized: duller, as if life had placed a grayscale filter over my life; quieter, as if the world no longer needed to hear from me; and less confident, like a soldier who had lost every battle she had ever fought.

Therefore, I think I lived as though I were waiting to be saved. I imagined that perhaps one day, someone would come into my life and make everything feel lighter. Someone who would understand the parts of me I could not explain. Someone who would bring warmth into the places that had become cold. Someone who would become my sunshine.

There is something comforting about that idea. It gives me permission to believe that my life is still incomplete for a reason. That my heart feels hollow because the hero of the story simply hasn’t arrived yet. That happiness is somewhere ahead of me, waiting in the shape of another person. That one day, when the right person finally comes along, everything that feels difficult now will somehow become easier.

But somewhere in all that waiting, I forgot something important. I was still here. I was the person who had been with me through every difficult season. The one who picked myself up every time life knocked me down was me. The one who kept going even when I did not know how things would turn out was me. I was the one who had carried all my dreams, disappointments, mistakes, grief, hopes, and little joys this far.

So perhaps I did not need someone to rescue me from the life I was living.  Of course, we all need love, companionship, friendship, family, and the beautiful feeling of being known, but no one else should have to be responsible for bringing the light back into my life. I am someone I am waiting for.

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And so, these days, I am trying to be kinder to myself. This might be one of the hardest things I have ever had to learn. For years, I was very good at pushing myself, at questioning and criticizing myself, at wondering whether I was doing enough, achieving enough, becoming enough. I also treated myself as though love were something I had to earn.

I don't want to live like that anymore. I want to become a softer place for myself to land. I want to speak to myself the way I speak to the people I love. I want to stop making happiness something I have to deserve before I am allowed to feel it. I want to finally live.

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Today, I want to say something to myself, to the girl who was once so effortlessly cheerful, to the current woman I am, and to the person I am still becoming: you have spent so much of your life trying to become worthy of the things you wanted. You tried to be good enough, strong enough, lovable enough. You have spent all of your life thinking about other people first while neglecting yourself. Perhaps you don't have to do that anymore.

On this birthday, I want to make you a promise: I will love you unconditionally. I will take care of you, be gentler with you, let you rest, let you grow. I will let you be happy without asking whether you have earned it first.

And also, please don’t wait for the sunshine anymore. You are the sunshine. And it may have taken me far too long to realize it, but I want you to know this now: You’re the pretty sunshine of my life. You always have been. And I hope, from today onward, you finally believe it, too.

I wish you all the best things in the world, my sunshine.

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Image source: Ruslan Sikunov via pexels