It always seemed too late to start writing about my life, as if the pages of my story had long since yellowed and crumbled. But today, I felt the urge to begin—perhaps not with a grand declaration or a profound revelation, but with the smallest act of recording a moment. The second term exams had concluded, and like most events in my academic life, I had missed them entirely. My college, patient and bureaucratic, reminded me yesterday with a phone call: I had forgotten to submit my photograph for a crucial form.
Today, I was making my way to college to deliver the pictures.
The morning carried with it a cold edge, the kind that sharpens hesitation into anxiety. My heart raced with possibilities that hung heavily over me. Would they take my photo and let me be? Or would they mention my absences, my academic failings, and suspend me altogether? My sisters had called and messaged relentlessly over the past week, their words soaked with love and desperation. "You need to focus on your studies," they urged, their voices echoing in my mind like a constant, steady drumbeat.
And yet, my heart whispered something else—an old, familiar fear.
There is a sensation that comes from using an alarm clock too often, that blaring sound burrowing into your soul until even its faintest echo triggers your pulse to quicken. This is what I feel whenever someone mentions school. A pit forms in my stomach, and I am ten years old again, suffocated by the weight of expectation.
The truth is, I lost a year of my life. While my classmates moved forward, I remained behind, trapped in the stagnation of my own making. I told myself I would reclaim it—fight to pass the 11th grade—but determination is a fickle thing. It withers in the cold grip of self-doubt and isolation. Time passed, and I watched helplessly as my resolve fractured. Family pressures, a rigid education system, the silent judgment of the world—all of it conspired against me, or so it seemed. I began to believe that life itself rejected me for who I was.
When I boarded the bus that morning, a familiar headache took hold, a dull pain behind my eyes and a hollow ache in my chest. My body has never made peace with buses. As a child, the mere act of stepping onto one would send my stomach into violent rebellion. I would vomit every morning, earning myself the cruel nickname "Vomiter" among my peers. The memory lingered like a sour taste in my mouth, even years later.
The journey to college felt longer than usual, each turn of the wheels grinding against my nerves. By the time I arrived, I was a knot of tension. The administrative office loomed before me like a courtroom, its door slightly ajar. Inside, there was no one—just an empty desk and a single, forgotten chair. I sat, the quiet pressing in on me, every second amplifying the stories I told myself.
Maybe no one would come. Maybe it was fate's way of confirming what I had already decided: that I was powerless, that my failures belonged not to me, but to a system that had abandoned me first.
But then, the door creaked open. A staff member shuffled in, eyes barely meeting mine.
"Your photograph?" they asked.
I handed it over, my hand trembling slightly.
"Thank you," they said. And that was it.
No accusations. No consequences. Just a formality completed in a few seconds.
I stepped outside into the sunlight, my breath catching in my throat. For a moment, I laughed at myself. All that fear, all that overthinking, and for what?
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-Sometimes the heaviest burdens are the ones we carry in our own mind-
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