Today, it's clear to me. Very clear. I will miss college after I leave it. I just know. Even if I hate my college, my course. Even if I hate those people, my classmates and teachers with a passion, I'm afraid and I'm sure that I'll miss it once I leave it. Which is less than in half a year. Daunting.
Life back in college, back in Chennai was extremely reckless. I didn't care for life or death. Things were always wild. I smoked, I should admit, because I liked the way it burnt my lungs and soothed it with menthol. I drove at night, all around. I drank coffee like I'd die tomorrow. I think, I lived and existed within a constraint of my rules and lack thereof. I sometimes walked around depressed, sometimes would go to the best eateries with friends that I learnt to love. I drove recklessly. They told me I was the most rash driver and I might just get into an accident. I didn't really care. I had pasta, I had icecream almost everyday at a place near college. I didn't really interact with people and just responded when they asked something. I didn't ask for anything, anybody. But I got a few people who grew on me and I learnt to love them and it taught me a side of friendship. I was alone, almost psychotic in my own room. I had three bottles of petroleum in my room. I had red lights in my room that would glow at night and Christmas lights all day. I had beautiful posters around the room. My room would always have a speaker humming slow music as I took a bath.
Do I miss it? I don't know. But I will miss it, in the future. There is going to be a day, in this year, that I will know that once I leave, there is no turning back. College would end, something new has to begin. A new place, a new job, new people. I know I don't want to ever get a job and just write or begin farming. But I will go try for a job because, though I hate people, I need them around me. They are the safety. But the questions are the same. Will I ever get a job. Will I ever survive and live, happy in sunshine? Will ever publish that book? Will
I ever make that movie? Will I ever find where I belong in this world? Will I ever find meaning, purpose? Will I ever find my friends, a crew? Will I ever fall in love? Will I ever get married?
And I know, that even if I hate these people, I will miss them when I'm gone. I'm going to miss the people I hate and that's a terrifying thought.
What's more terrifying than that is, I will forget all of them and move on if I find a better place. How sick of me.
I will leave, I won't attend farewell or shit because I know how difficult they would be. Seeing the people whom you are gonna leave forever. Just to text them happy birthday once a year and gradually that would fade too. And in ten years, I wonder if I'd even remember their names. I should try to atleast keep in touch with the three girls who grew on me.
Oh. I know why I stumbled into this topic. I suddenly remembered the book the dead guy gave me in my farewell from school. It had several letters. And I have it dumped with my father's letters, yet to be read. Why do I keep calling him dead guy? Because it is harsh and I hate him for dying like this. There is no closure and reading those will not give me one. But then, closure is for living people, not the dead.
After today's teachers day celebration, I think I will be missing these teachers too.
I realise that I will be missing safety. The security that comes with being a student and being supported. But after this, it's me. On my own, finding my own life. There is no more space for half hearted attempts and half hearted trials in work, relationships and anything that could affect life. A part of my life, the carefree part is over and I think this is singularly the most haunting thing that everyone my age will go through. I wish they find support and not sit like me, sipping wine, trying not to think as I type into my fade in, trying to piece a story together.
Yup, I have begun to drink a glass of red wine, cabernet sauvignon at night. Because, they said it prevents cancer. And then, I have given up milk for atleast half a year now. Wow, half a year, it's entirely within this lockdown.
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