Old Yellow Pages ✓

epilogue

1st march, friday, 2019

dear diary,

The last exams of my school life start tomorrow.

This diary is coming to an end, and so are things to write about.

Writing this diary has really helped me clear my head. I feel empty. Relaxed. Like whatever I had to say has been heard.

I think the reason why I kept twisting and turning thoughts in my head was because I was afraid of losing them. Perhaps I thought that if I stopped thinking them, they would vanish and I will lose an idea, a piece of myself. That is why writing helps people to clear their heads: writing a thought removes the fear of losing a thought. You can never lose something if you can come back to it again and again.

I feel like I have extra space in my head. Maybe I felt that stuffing more things into my brain will somehow displace the things I had already learnt, and that is why I was afraid of learning more. It sounds unbelievable, but it's true.

I am a perfectionist, and I can't bring myself to learn something new unless I have consolidated the previously learnt stuff in my brain. I stopped myself from exploring spirituality further till I was finished writing in my diary about everything I had learnt and making sense of it. I knew that reading more would make me want to make more notes, and my work would keep piling on.

I stop myself from reading new novels till I have surfed the net for reviews and book discussions on the one I just finished reading.

In hindsight, I think these past two years have been so terrible because I was comparing them to class 10. I was upset because things weren't as good as they used to be, and thus, I stopped myself from living this new experience. I was unable to let go.

This is a pattern in me. I can't embrace change. I want new experiences, but my past and my doubts always hold me back. I deliberately keep thinking about the good things, over and over, about the people I have met, and they become ghosts haunting my mind. And my attachment to that doesn't let me move forward.

What if? I think. What if it's not as good as what I have now? What if I lose something instead of gaining?

But now I feel ready. I have released whatever was inside of me and now I want more.

I have planned things. After school ends, I will work on myself for three months before college begins. I will do the things I have always wanted to do but couldn't because of studies. I will work on my body. I want to learn the guitar and Urdu. I want to focus on my singing and make more YouTube covers. I want to learn about plants. I want to volunteer at NGOs.

And then, armed and equipped, I will throw myself fully into the college experience and leave behind everything else. I might write again when I feel sad or like my head is about to explode, but till then, I will put away this diary in my cupboard, and forget about all it contains.

I am running out of these old yellow pages anyway.

❄