On Leaving

Normally, when the school year reaches its most climactic moments, I tend to be happy without even trying. But, that doesn't happen this time. There's something wrong with this picture. There's just an overwhelming sense of grief over the fact that all is finished. It's as though there's never enough time to compensate for all the things that I want to say. I'm leaving, and I feel that I have left something behind, or lost it - that one irretrievable thing that only really seems to matter to me. This makes me sad. Reminds me of the Pokemon trading card that I had as a kid. It was a Jigglypuff. And from the time it was handed down to me, I grasped the privilege to take it with me every day, anywhere, to show off to the other kids in the neighborhood.

Then one day, we all went to this restaurant - the really fancy one with the fountain and fish pond. All I had to do was to keep the card in my pocket. Would have saved me the anxiety later on. But no, instead, I leaned too close into the glass overlooking the pond that eventually, I dropped the trading card into the still waters below. I just stood there, this little kid of five or six, trying to determine all the possible ways for me to come down and get it without causing a raucous. Nothing could have been done. There was, at that early part of my life, that feeling of hopelessness, plunging down at me. Even that night, when I went to bed, I was still thinking about that card and how sad it was that I could have had taken it home with me. But then I was too small to take matters into my own hands, too small to try. Hopelessness, exactly. That's what I feel right now. Not a good feeling.

The reason why Alain and I were at the gym the full hour last Wednesday is quite ridiculous when I look at it now: we just didn't feel like going home then. It was just after this grueling practical exam in PE2 when I felt that sudden wave of grief rush through me - that alas!, the last class for the semester had finally concluded. I was thinking of those things that I would have regretted and the things that made me feel good that day. Then I was thinking that it's finally over, the long and winding first year at college that never seemed to end.

There is an ominous foretelling of the future, one that neither Alain nor I could see. One of us is going to get in, I'm sure of it. And I am more than certain that it isn't going to be me. I wish it were me, but that's never going to happen because someone deserves it more than I do. We sat there on the bleachers, just talking about what we plan to do with our lives after all this, and about the people that we've met and will most probably miss, and all the good things and bad things, all the while trying to refrain from the very topic that terrify us.



It was a sad day. But when I think about it, that was the best sad day. Because, I was thinking nonstop and was just trying to figure things out for the sake of friendship. Will we ever get out? And if we do, will we ever see each other again?

I don't think I can do much justice for last Wednesday, the beauty of it, or lack thereof. The sound of sneakers thudding on the gymnasium floor. The unease of having to wear a dress for PE class. Waiting for six o' clock before we decide to leave, the lights closing down on us, the short walk to the dormitory. There's so much heaviness and confusion in everything. It wasn't happy. It was sad. It was the best sad day.