Today I answered ma last paper of engineering. 4 years after I made the first conscious critical decision of ma life, I dunno if m fit to call ma self an engineer. That’s a different issue to talk about. I am a little relieved today, a little relaxed… and its given my brain some time to think unrushed.
While comin bac after the paper, I had one of the longest drives home I could ever have( no, o wasn stuck in a traffic jam o netin). Glancing outside, I wondered how many such drives were left, before I bid adieu to ma second home (or was it more like first). Our vivas will be done by 15th o so, n then the only strand tying us back will be results… n for most of us, it will be an almost never to return back journey as we move out of there.
When I look back at these four years, words fail me, just as they would for neone who wud attempt to put ”life” in words. As we move out from all our comfort zones, to the big black world, i question the ability of the educational system I was brought up in to equip me to sustain it. That apart, there are a lot of other things. Life in gec was alwes sheltered, u cud be the mischievous one, and yet walk about with zero responsibilities for your actions. It’s a world that I am leaving behind.. it’s a part of me that’s gonna be lost in those greens forever (probably like everyone else).
A year ago, one of my friends moved abroad. We had this goodbye meet. He came to drop me at the gate. As I turned to walk towards the door, he had a look on his face that din make sense to me that time. They were feelings alien to me. Today I see myself in the mirror with the same look in my eyes.. a desperation hidden behind the fake smiling eyes, a desperation to hold on, to drag the moment, from now to forever.. a mad hope that asks for things to remain the same, o sometimes even to go back, to “the best times”… I now make sense of the tone of the “see you” that was the last spoken word between us… a voice tat was as devoid of hope as the words full of it. Cos in those words lingered an uncertainty that contradicted the hope in his heart. It was more like a voice that said, “see you (will I, ever??)”
Gec is like a person now, a one whole being in itself… n as I draw towards the day I wil walk out of the gates, for probably one final time I’l say the same see you.. with a question at the back of ma mind:
“Will you miss me , like I'll miss you?”
--A question that’s alwes the hidden part of goodbyes… a question that’s alwes left unanswered.. cos u are supposed to know.
Comments