21/22

2021 was a great year for me, 2022 too but in different terms. 20s transit your life, you leave stuff behind. You don't want to, but you have to, and you finally do. You chase new stuff now, with grace and heat, and leave old stuff with elegance.

2021 was great, wish I knew how great it was when it was actually happening. I was just out of college, a brand new job where I was working from home, and thus really close to people I love. I started brewing coffee that year, and just like when you start to date someone, excitement you have with a new hobby is something else. <days skip> I got an interview call, and preparations followed. I was mildly stressed, but now that I look back, I enjoyed that preparation phase. Maybe, lil bit more than the goal itself. <days skip> My college called me for the convocation. Not considering some really good friends I made there, and some subjects, I didn't like college, I hated it. Didn't want to attend convocation either, but well it was probably the last time I would get to live those days back with my best friends again in that campus, so I was at convocation. Now, at a convocation, you get a degree, you a bid a farewell, and a phase of life ends. No one wants it to end, but it does. I also got a gold medal btw, meant nothing. But for my parents, as the come from academia, it was a big thing, maybe bigger than placements. I saw happiness in their eyes, mine had some tears-of-joy, and that's when I realised I played college well.

2022 begins. I get my interview results, and a new job.  And, just before it did I had a really nice gap of time, where I was at home, doing nothing, not worrying about results, and maybe a nice time to live life. I wasted it, in the worst way, worrying about stuff which was never there. It got worse. Meh. I went to a trip with my parents, to Kullu-Manali, just before my birthday. The trip was awesome, but I was still carrying some weight. <a day skips> and my birthday comes, and it was the best. After a long time I was physically with my closest folks (my parents, she and some really close friends). Best birthday cakes ever! We went to calm woods and did our little ceremony there. Days pass, and you move to a new place (and your old place seems different). A busy city life starts to kick in, office, work and weekends. This is when a new phase begins. Just didn't realise it then. Stuff happens, and you finally see a beach. Goa felt like home, maybe, any place does when you are with some people.  A ton of things happened that year too, I made new friends, lost some old ones, went on a solo-soul-searching-trip, sky-dived.

I was a jerk who wasn't living, I was escaping, and then escaping what was already an escape. it. never. ended. What I was seeking was right there, it wasn't an escape, 'twas the reality.

You don't correct things in an instant, spells don't work. So, you leave, for the last short journey. To an imperfect one. You have pretty cool foods, you ride bicycles, and You find yourself watching stars. At 2 AM. In shivering cold. You don't click pictures then, you forget to. You don't need some app to remind you of that night, it stays with you, till the very end.