I'm seeing age in the faces around me; the dawns and dusks are speeding up. I'm 23, in the twilight of my university years, and lately everything feels like footnotes to moments that once was.
“When's your last exam?" leaves my lips more often than usual lately, with the underlying question of “When are you leaving Waterloo?" implied between the lines. The indefiniteness of their responses ring in my ears, because I know the last time I'll see most of these people again will be at convocation, then maybe never again. Some will continue their studies in masters programs, some will go into industry and kickstart their careers, and some are left wondering what's next for them.
I fall into the latter - the tech market isn't looking too great for the past while, but I'm reminded of a saying to live a fickle reed's life - a reference to an old tale of how reeds bend in a storm, instilling the importance of yielding to one's circumstances. Freedom isn't all its made out to be, and with graduation looming over my head as the days pass me by, I can't let the feeling of aimlessness take hold of me again like last year. Now, I have people that have their arms wide open for me when I need to fall back from the rat race to breathe.
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The start of 2024 has hooked me into the feeling of hope. So much is starting to creep into my field of view, from graduation, to summer vacation, to full time. All the excitement fills the air around me as I count down the days, but a lingering emotion resides and it was hard for me to place a finger on it until recently.
All the people I've met during school, the friends and acquaintances, the program faculty and elective teachers, the random encounters where I'd lock eyes with someone familiar and wave hello - it's all fading to the background. And even my closest friends, they will all eventually spread out after school ends. It'll take more effort to message and retain the conversation, or to buy a plane ticket to fly over and catch up. It's a struggle to maintain my social energy, where reaching out to people and sending those blue messages cost more than I can offer. It's something I need to work on, so that I can continue to nurture the meaningful connections I've worked so hard to build during university.
These people are memories tied to a space that we all shared, and going to those places remind me of the fondness I shared with them. Like, there have been more formal events than previous, and I'm dressing up so much lately. Getting my iron ring at IRC with Sam and Vedan, GradBall with the roomies, grad toast with my SYDE cohort - it's all happening so fast, and I'm trying to live in those moments as they happen with the people around me.
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There's a literary technique that's commonly used in religious texts called prophetic perfect tense, where its usage describes "future events that are so certain to happen that they are referred to in past tense as if they had already happened".
To my friends, old and new, to say you don't have time means you don't want to. We will meet up and see each other again, one way or another. Distance is only a measure of your determination to see who you value. Don't let money dissuade you from doing what matters - if I want to visit you, then I'll make something work, and I hope you'd do the same.
And to my current roommates that I see sometimes more often than I'd like, I'll miss you.
Your absence weighs greater than someone else's presence.
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