30 DAY CHALLENGE - DAY 8

Esther-Marie, or how most people call her, Babsie, is a 4'11 filipino girl living in Vienna, Austria. The first time I met her, she was very kind yet very shy. She hardly spoke another sentence with me after she introduced herself to me. That felt strange because it gave me the feeling as if she didn't care at all. So before I made the effort to actually get to know her, I just observed her. I figured she was the kind of person that would rather hang out with a book than actually hang out with a group of people. But the moment she had to talk in front of people, she did really well. She had a lot of knowledge about all sort of things and that made sense cause she was always with a book in her hand. Anyways, when time had passed I kind of lost interest in getting to know her more because quite frankly, I wouldn't know what to talk to her about. Besides, the other crowd was so much more fun hanging out with and I didn't feel like using up my time to take care of an outcast.

Another few years had passed and suddenly I found her hanging out with the bunch of people I hang out with. She was so different. It just felt like she came out of her shell. She was still shy, but she would talk a lot more with you than actually just leave it at 'Hi, my name is Esther'. That was the time when I got to know her a lot more. Before I even started to talk to her properly, I actually just kept on observing and I realised she had a huge heart for doing service for the community. Later, she also told me that it was the community and the people who made an effort for her, made her come out of her shell and comfort zone. And she also apologised for not making an effort back then to actually join me and my friends at some activities. She explained that she was very shy and that she didn't really feel comfortable around us. But she was happy that it changed. She also explained that it takes her a bit more time than usual to open up to people because she's been disappointed a lot in the past. At that time when we grew close she confessed, that her supposed-to-be friend left her for more popular people in school which made her feel even worse about herself. That's why she was very careful with who to trust and who to open up to. I felt quite honoured to be a person she trusted. I also learned that she was quite an introvert due to the fact that she wasn't really outgoing since her parents were quite strict and she had to babysit her younger siblings. It amazes me how well she handled three younger siblings even though she could have rebelled against her parents and made them let her hang out with her friends. "Nah, there was no reason for rebelling out at that time. I didn't have a lot of friends anyways and the few ones I had, understood my circumstances," she told me.