A Journey to 25 | Day 21

It takes courage to give your mistakes another shot. After fourteen years I decided to try out the hostel life again. This time I was much older, wiser and better prepared. There were reasons to take this decision. This wasn’t a kid trying to explore things. This was an adult taking thought-out decisions. Yet all of this didn’t make the experience any easier. I had planned to move to the college hostel with a friend. We were both looking forward to the hostel life and the perks that come with it. We ignored the flip side of the coin. Actually it never really came up. I felt I was ready for the experience and the extra bit of time to focus on studies as well as making memories. For the most part of making the arrangements, we were together. Maybe that’s why we never felt alone in the process. Also, we had friends in the hostel. We were not really going to be alone. It wasn’t going to be a strange environment. Things would sure be different but rather easy than getting in when all of us were mere strangers. But the day we had to join in we were separate. And that’s when we actually felt the harsher side of our decision. It was a Sunday. I had packed my bags and kept rechecking every once in a while if I forgot to keep anything. I was anxious. I didn’t feel like going anymore. I was trying to come up with excuses. I had none. I don’t know if it was the commitment to my friend of going to the hostel together or my will to not back out of the situation that made me leave the house and sit in the car. My mom was sitting next to me while my sister enjoyed sitting in the passenger seat controlling the radio. As we were getting closer to college my heart sank deeper. I maintained a straight face. Smiled here and there once in a while. As we started the paperwork in the hostel office things started to get even more real. Till this point, it was just a sketch. From here, colors started to fill in. While the sketch could be erased and remade, the colors were permanent. As the colors filled in making the sketch further real the thought that this can’t be undone jolted me out of the dreamy picture I had built in my head. My friends in the hostel had come down to help us with the luggage. The warden let my mom and sister come with me to the room as this being the first day. I was sharing the room with two other people I had never met before. I thought I’d be staying with my friend but the warden had it another way. She was assigned the room right next to mine. Though there was another bed available in the same room we were separated. We started setting up things in the room. And when everything was settled it was time for my mom and sister to go back home. My mom gave me a chocolate. Probably because she knew I was going to cry and the chocolate would bring some, if not more, solace to my depressed state. I was holding back my tears. Yet when we reached the hostel gate and I waved them goodbye I couldn’t hold them back anymore. I saw, from the distance, tears smearing my mom’s face. My friends held me together. My mom knew she had to go. She had to do this, again. So she left. Meanwhile, my friends took me inside. We opened up the chocolate and took a bite each. We sat in the open-air shifting the topic from the current state to anything we possibly could. And in a matter of time, I was smiling, laughing and was ready to welcome my companion in this big decision. I had been through the experience and I had great help. It was my turn to help her through hers.