“I blinked my eyes
and in an instant,
decades had passed.”
― John Mark Green
Recently, I feel that my usually slow-paced life has gained speed. Just a few days back, I was preparing for my board exams, and now I am going to my grandma's house. I am sitting at a railway station waiting for my train to arrive. I was at Rampur a few days ago and soon I am about to leave it. Even though I was aware of everything beforehand, the speed at which everything is happening is exciting and terrifying to me at the same time. In the last 36 hours, I have had two get-togethers, read the book I ordered, and gotten a notice regarding my new session of class 11 (this was around May 24 & 25). During the exams, and actually during the whole 10th, I wished that this session would end soon. But now that everything is coming to an end, it ironically feels sad and nostalgic. This, I believe, is due to our brains' inability to absorb such large transitions, which are bound to occur one day or another. The prospect of bearing the consequences of our decisions for the rest of our lives is frightening. Some time back, there were no responsibilities or concerns about anything. But now this whole scenario will change. Friends will come and go, and new ones will be made. In some ways, it is a pivotal period that will shape the trajectory of our lives in the future. While writing about it, I keep getting reminded of Robert Frost's The Road Not Taken. All of this change has taken me by surprise, and I wasn't expecting it. Sections were re-shuffled two years ago, and many of my friends got into different sections. I didn't like my classmates at first, but I believe over time you bond with everyone. I never thought that I could feel sentimental and bitter about leaving people that I once despised. It reminds me of a quote by C.S Lewis that says, "Isn't it funny that day by day nothing changes, but when you look back, everything is different." I believe it adequately expresses my feelings.
The weird mechanism of time really baffles me. When you want time to pass by quickly, every second feels like an hour. When you hope the moment will last forever, it swishes past like wind. At the beginning of my exams, I wished the days would pass quickly and I would finally get free. But as the end neared, I felt as if everything came rushing at me at once. Thinking about time and all that we do with it overwhelms me at times. After so long, a new phase of my life is beginning. I can't do anything with the time I have other than happily embrace it, even if it may feel difficult. I hope I'll be able to make good use of it.
PS: I wrote half of this blog on the way to my grandmother's place and half on the way back.
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