C'est la vie

My college journey is coming to an end, and its finally starting to register that I’m on my final lap.

I’ve always imagined life as a book. Every phase of your life becomes a chapter, different from the ones before it, but part of the same story.

Whenever a new chapter starts its only natural that your heart yearns that the last chapter had not ended.

At the start, you are hit with a wave of unfamiliarity. Everything changes in the blink of an eye. You long for the comfort of the previous chapter, wishing it had not ended so soon.

But time only goes forward.

Time does its thing, which it always does. You settle in. You form connections. You get used to this new environment, understanding the people and situations you find yourself in. The process changes you, learning some things the easy way and some things the hard way. You gain scars, instincts, intuition, regaining the sense of familiarity and security that you didn’t have at the beginning. Almost like collecting armour you didn’t have at the start.

And just as things start to feel normal, you are confronted by the fact that this chapter, the one you despised in the beginning, is coming to an end.

And there is absolutely nothing you can do about it.

Thats the part that hurts the most.

Its not the feeling of regret. I don’t regret the actions and events that have happened so far in this chapter. It hurts knowing that if I could “rewrite” this chapter, knowing what I know now and with the armour I’ve collected, it would’ve been a different chapter, perhaps a better one. Maybe I would’ve chosen to focus on the little things, live life more intentionally, appreciate moments as they happened instead of realizing their value only in retrospect.

But thats not how life works.

You are allowed to keep your lessons, but the moments are not yours to relive.

You tell yourself that the next chapter will be easier, and the lessons you have learnt will help you. But deep down you know the truth: the next phase will come with its own set of never-seen-before problems, uncertainties, unfamiliarities, and its own lessons that you’ll have to learn from scratch.

The cycle goes on.

Like a tree surviving season after season, adding a ring each year without anyone noticing. Every chapter you survive through changes you and leaves something behind. You end each chapter as a different person than the one who entered it.

Coming up with an understanding for this process does not mean that I have come to terms with it or enjoy it.

Every new chapter feels like the beginning of a Black Mirror episode. You are thrust into a new world without much concrete context, surrounded by characters you don’t recognize. And just when you start to care about the story and the characters, the credits roll in.

Netflix asks you, “Are you still watching?”

You take a moment to think before clicking on the next episode. You know how exhausting it’ll be starting over again.

Maybe thats the cruel thing about time. It never asks whether you’re done, whether you understood the chapter, before turning the page.

C’est la vie.