The little success story

Each one of us has our own success story to tell. Whether it’s passing trigonometry, the board exams, giving birth, paying debts or becoming rich.

Mine is about this insecure, low self-esteemed version of me named Pearliza and how she became Pearl.

Pearliza is a provincial girl whose looks don’t measure up to those well-bred city girls. In elementary, she was ridiculed by her classmates and was often called names. She was called hunchback because she brings this big backpack to school and because she was a small girl it really made her look like a hunchback. Her friends at school never believed her that she had drank Yakult. Mocked her because she wore a pink Kaypee rubber shoes to school and her friends never thought that her family could afford one. They made drawings of her…drawings of an ugly girl. To them, she's an ugly little duckling. She was teased upon because she lived in an old dilapidated ancestral house whose grandma kept peering up on the big window making her friends think that she lived with a witch. Because of the constant taunting at school, she has built a shell around her. This shell made her the feisty one.

This girl had always known that deep inside she is a nice little girl and a trustworthy friend. They didn’t know that Pearliza is very talented and quite bright. She is actually a funny one who brightens up her friends’ dull days.

Pearliza went to college and met friends who have accepted the quirky side of her and loved her for that. She proved to herself the things that she has longed for...that she is a leader, that she is indeed talented and that she is the nice and trustworthy little friend. Her hometown friends can only gasp in amazement when they knew that she led various university based organizations. They never expected that the little ugly hunchback who wore Kaypee and claimed she drank Yakult has made a name for herself in the environment that embraced her.

Pearliza is no longer Pearliza, she's Pearl. The bright girl who made people laugh and made them say wow because she can dance. Pearl is the girl who led various organizations and has a solid circle of friends. She has finally found true friends who embraced Pearliza and turned her into a pearl.

And oh, she’s a mother to a beautiful daughter. Her daughter is no longer the ugly little duckling her mom was once called by.

Each of us has our own little success story to tell. It doesn’t matter how we tell the story but what matters is how we become a success story.

I am Pearliza. I am my own success story.