It’s interesting, making the transition into university.
You get ceaselessly bombarded with small, routine decisions
that others would previously have made for you; the uncertainty of time, of
consequence, even of cause and effect touches you lightly on the shoulder,
reminding you of the vagaries of reality, and that the chaotic, unruly mess
that is the real world is just a hair’s breadth away, just within reach for
those brave enough to do so.
Odd, how courage sometime distills into nothing more than
accepting and moving on.
Equally odd, how one can be alone amidst a crowd, loud
amidst silence, and assume states so contrary to one’s surroundings, and how
the little quiet spaces we carve out for ourselves amidst the humdrum of daily
life almost become sacred little snippets of time we are loathe to share with
anyone except those closest to us.
Expectations rear their ugly heads now and then, threatening
to dull even the most beautiful morning, erase the freshness of brisk mountain
air with insecurity and feelings of displacement, of not being good enough.
But
they, too, pass.
Realizations about yourself and your friends come and go;
you start puzzling out how you relate to others, and how they relate to you.
Most importantly, you learn to stop obsessing over
self-image, over the way you dress, the way you look and act, and to embrace
people for who they are, faults and all. Everyone has something to share, some
insecurity or weakness they try to hide by overcompensating, by going so far
out of their comfort zones they forget the way back to themselves and are left
struggling in limbo, buffeted as the twin demons of fear and loneliness beat
their wings and attempt to gain flight. All find their way back, only to find
that home wasn't what it once was, or that home’s the same, but they aren't
what they once were.
You realize that the world’s unfair, and that there’s
nothing you can do about it. The hand of fate weaves the skeins as it wills,
and we are mostly powerless to stop it. Coming to terms with that degree of
helplessness, ironically enough, separates those who instigate change from
those who resist it. In the end, no one can say what’s right, what’s wrong,
what’s better or what’s worse. Everything’s simply different.
Four more years beckon, a bonsai in the face of a cyclone.
Yet this, too, shall pass.
