After 12 years of waiting, waking up at 6 a.m., staying up past midnight like night owls, there I was. I had waited for 12 years for that very moment. Now it was here. After 12 years, after 4380 days, I was standing in front of my entire class waiting to grab a piece of paper. Suddenly, the moment before my name was to be announced for all those souls to hear, I didn’t want to be there anymore. The build up, the wait, the patience all seemed futile. After all those years, all that diligence culminates in about ten seconds. I saw all those people behind me in identical flowing gowns staring at me like hypnotized gullible young children. They read out where I was attending college the following year. The sound of my college resonated around the dust filled hall. In moments, I was graduated. I handed in my childhood for a key to a new life filled with responsibilities.
It had been ten days since I had graduated. I oddly began missing school. While the underclassmen were still sitting in their seats, staring at the clock, waiting for their day to move on from the hand holding high schools, I was at home picturing which class I would be in. The next day, I found myself lost in a reverie of my illusions of the life I would have in college. I was trapped in this cyclical pattern of reminiscing about the past and dreaming about the future. I was stuck in a seamless limbo.
As the night inconspicuously slips in a melancholy manner, I lose myself in the disillusionment of the present. My mind is rubbed with a listless hum and my eyes burn from the penetration of the sun rays. I am trapped in a cage of anticipation. My body flutters, forcing me to wait and hope. I am at that point when summer has not yet lost its buzzing bees or its singing sparrows, but the flavor of summer has already withered within me. I am stuck waiting and preparing. Another chunk of my magic-filled childhood breaks away, crumbling into an abyss of a nebulous memory. The vestiges of my childhood have dissolved like thick salt, into a vast ocean of anticipation. I am stuck wondering, planning the next part of my life and reminiscing the past.
August slipped by, melting into the gap of my fingers. I have lost the past. I have wasted the present. What will happen to my future? I understood that all things change. I have enjoyed the past decade with those whom I love. Tomorrow is the future. I will learn to ignite new fires and knit new friends as I look forward. I turn around and I see a hazy spectacle of my memories floating into a black abyss. I look down and I see that I am held up by those who have always supported me and love me. I am free. I have escaped limbo, So let me rise.
