Taylor at 22

Teaser

Jack was in the airport to pick me up when I returned from Pennsylvania. It was good to see a familiar face after a week of extreme socialization and a mini heart break. I went there with big expectations and it gave me bitter sweet memories.

"Hey!" he waved his hands. I smiled in return. I tried to be cheerful than I was as I didn't want to disappoint him or myself.

"How was your adventure?" Jack asked grabbing the suitcase from me.

"Great! It was interesting"

"Told you"

We drove back home discussing everything that happened - funny and uncomfortable moments, my new friends and our teamworks. For some reason, I refrained from telling him about Nathan. I felt that I should hide him and my feelings from my world and my people and that I should hide him within myself, in some corner of my heart - somewhere even I should not find.

2023.

It will be a new year in two days. Life has returned to the usual routine. Like a pond without any ripples in it. Sometimes I feel, even though it's convenient to be in that state of inaction, we certainly do need that ripples - for good or bad.

I took out my diary to fill the last pages of the year 2022. The first thing I could write was about Nathan. I can't lie that I don't miss him but he's not that important to miss because we don't even know each other for that to happen. I wanted to move on. Pouring down my thoughts on the white pages, I decided to forget everything that has happened.

It is going to be a new year. And it is going to be a new me. Cringe, I know.

Ok, let's be done with his chapter and focus on Twenty Twenty Three, but still I'm Twenty Two. Nothing had changed.

2023 seemed to me a year of uncertainty. I had no idea what my life will be. I didn't have any plans. Life went on and I was stuck in an infinite loop.

My education was done. The adventures were over. Love (that's what I think it was) peeped in and left. No more fun and playing around. Finally, It's time for reality. I didn't expect this uninvited guest will tap the door so soon in my life. I realised life won't be a rosy path as I've dreamed it to be or believed it to be.

You do your education, get good scores, win some medals if possible, land on a job, spend as you wish, enjoy your life. No.

It was all a delusion.

I experienced more, much more out of this syllabus which was framed by people we don't know. And I knew I will have to go through a lot before I cross every phase. It's true that we somehow reach every stage, yet everybody is in a denial that this in-between place exist. Every person in this world has to pass this valley. But all I need to know was...

Am I ready?