I have been M.I.A for some time
now. I was busy rounding up with my BSc programme and I’m finally done with it.
Four years of pure joy, pain, surprises, frustration, disappointments, and achievements
have ended. The four years every high school senior can’t wait to get a taste
of when on the other hand, every undergrad wants to quickly get over with them.
They ended and nothing happened. The sky didn't turn pink neither did my crush come to my door bearing roses and a diamond ring. I had so many ridiculous
expectations but right now, normalcy has eroded them from my head.
There was something about the
notion of being a graduate that made us think we’d probably sprout an extra
head because the weight of the awesomeness would be too heavy for one head to
carry. I thought I’d feel different, have all the answers all of a sudden, have
super strength to do all those things I've been dreaming to do and maybe even
grow taller. HAHA! But I feel normal; normal in a funny way.
Maybe this is a phase. The platform
from which I’d leap unto all those things I expected. I feel strangely
overwhelmed by my ambitions. I’m out of the safe net where I used to have all
the answers. If you asked me what I wanted to be in three years time, the
answers just rolled off my tongue like floetry. Right now, I think of the same
question and no words rush to my mouth. I stare into whatever lies before me as
those plans, dreams, goals seem like tiny molecules floating on the sea of uncertainty.
I no longer have some explanations waiting for me even before I asked the
question. This is really strange, really ordinary and I’m used to being a
superwoman. Being a superwoman is easy when there are no risks and no black
holes furiously reaching out to drag you into them. Here in the real world, all
we have are ordinary people with extra ordinary dreams trying to make use of
ordinary resources to make extraordinary stuff happen. I’m getting used to the
idea as peculiar as it is to me.
I’m training myself to subdue
fear, ignore shame and accept the possibility of failure as a natural
ingredient for success. I’m struggling to accept the truth in the fact that I may
have to let some people go so that new people can teach me things that will
open my eyes to greater things. I am making conscious efforts to define who I am
and what I want out of life, and I’m learning that this definition expands with
every new day. I am learning that I have no reason to let go of who I want to
be no matter what eerie voices say.
Everything you feel and have is a
tool. Love, pain, memories, fear are all forces from which you can draw strength
or weakness. So even though I am having a hard time reconciling reality with
expectations, I will find my feet and I’ll stand on them. The truth is that no achievement
is an end. They ought to be pre-requisites to achieving new stuff and we must
find other things we need to attain new heights. Everything seems as uncertain
as the mists, curling and shifting with every second but we must remember that
as hours engulf minutes, the forms beyond the mists become clear images. This is
my mist phase but I have to make sure that as things settle, I’ll be ready at
every point to take charge of reality and make extraordinary things happen. I
have decided to have fun and make great memories while I’m making history. Who says
you can’t do both? Life’s too short to for every day not to be filled with the
kinda laughter that makes you snort or the kinda smile that makes your cheeks
hurt. Whether you’re in the mist phase or at the point where everything is
crystal clear, be grateful and seize the moment with reckless abandon. Hey, I’m
not saying you should jump off a cliff with no parachute screaming “You only
live once”. Just let your dreams, hope and faith be incorruptible.
