On Feeling Full

 I turned 17, the age of ripe existential angst - the kind of age where the epitome of storytelling is through subtitles. The age where I overly fixate on how far I can move from my phone without cutting off the music in my airpods - till the edge of the bathroom area, it turns out and after that, I settle for the leaks. On the insignificant day when I turned this age, I revisited my favorite spots on campus and found myself on a journey. Here is what I wrote that day: 

stop 1 — 

it is windy. it is rainy. it is raining on me. on my freshly washed hair, on my new peach dress, my eager glasses, and my fingers as i type mindlessly, meaninglessly. this dress will forever have remains of my 17th birthday, i suppose. this is mild. the trees stand proudly far from me. i am not embraced, i am a mere observer. the burnished stone paved underneath me is not warm, but it isn’t cold either. i am not a part of this and i am not an outsider. 

it has started raining harder, i cannot stay here unprotected. 

i trek upward the slope and then down, watching as my clean pink slippers sink into the unconscious cake of mud. i grimace but continue. today, i am an adventurer and i will persist.

destination 2 — 

i have reached a covered area. it is silent here, and the rain can only enter upto a certain point. i have learnt how to domesticate the rain. but the wind undoes my hair. 

another girl has entered. soft coughs followed by an abrupt stopping in her tracks when she notices me. “can i sit here?” but the rain has our undivided attention. 

now she has turned away to her phone, red earphones jammed into the sides of her head, a black jacket outlining the curve of her back as she sits, propped up against the glass door to the office behind us. she also has pink slippers. these are like a second skin to the back of her feet as she pushes her heel into the drab green tiles. she did not do as she said. she had pointed at the floor beside the narrow entrance to this opening when asking for permission to enter. but she sat not across from me, but diagonally. 

she has gone now. i think i will also leave soon. 

there is someone else here now. this one isn’t kind. she fumbles and unsurely waves at me. she takes a seat where the last girl had pointed. she does not have earphones. she plays music without it. i can’t hear what she’s listening to. i have my own music to pay attention to. 

i sigh heavily. my head is heavy. i rest it against the sharp brick wall behind me. i feel uneasy but full. 

it has stopped raining. 

fin

— 

I felt like I had to make everything more significant than was necessary. Old reused advice from my physics teacher about how washing things, specifically socks, was the way to reset one’s productive energies seemed unbelievably helpful. Everything was much more real to me that day - I saw the butterfly garden I’d always ignored up till then for some reason and the strong coffee that settled into my veins after a few hours was a warm hug. I saw recipes that were comforting (someone knows what they’re doing) and philosophy was honest for once (my exploration of consciousness had led me to interesting avenues). The color of my ring was fading but today they were just rose-gold edges for me to admire. I had a lot to write about but not nearly enough strength. And this is how I ended the day:  my stomach is full, my heart is full. my blood veins are full. i feel i will explode.