jem on jém

[ENTRY 008]

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There’s been a salty sea breeze of finality washing over me the past week. “And now it’s all over,” a quote from the end of Goodfellas, seemed to resonate a lot with the way I was feeling. At least for a day. Then I rewatched that very scene, and with the added context, the comparison kind of fell apart and didn’t make much sense at all.

Sure, at this present juncture, it feels like the end of an era, but not one lived through lavish coke-fueled escapades with a really good oner you can point out to an uninterested friend is actually people going around in a circle for most of it. Instead, in three years, I gradually replaced parts of myself. Some components were becoming worn, outdated and in need of an upgrade. Perhaps I felt too proud of how much I had built myself up, how much work I had put in from the beginning, that there was no need to upgrade so soon. As it turns out, I cannot future-proof my personal development as a human being with watercooling or RGB lighting on ram sticks which I can’t fucking turn off.

One messy analogy in the bag, it feels like there’s so much unknown, intangible nothingness awaiting me, for better and worse. Someone has shut the lights off completely, and though I can picture where everything I need should be, and where I should and shouldn’t step to get there, I bump into things, occasionally knocking over what sounds like a priceless vase or blah blah blah blah.. I get it.

There is, unfortunately, no blueprint. I hate this, but have ultimately grown to understand that it’s better this way. It needs to happen. The good and the bad. So many cliché lessons in books and movies have told so many versions of this oft-repeated sentiment, and I got so caught up looking at everyone else in the crowd pretending I knew what was going on that the messages never stuck. Par for the course when you’re me, I guess, either not understanding basic, rudimentary instructions or needing to be spoon-fed information at first. There’s an underlying complex or fear of being infantilised, but you save that for later.

A whole lot of words and nothing said to say that this part of my life feels infinitesimal and without much direction. There’s a plan yet to have progressed more than a whole percentage, but a plan nonetheless. Even if it’s written across deleted notes apps or abandoned project files, it exists and moves forward because I do. Because I must.

An important friend broke my brain more than half a year ago when he told me how far I’d come in just a couple of years of knowing him and the pocketful of friends I had made at uni. But he broke it completely when he told me to imagine the friends I could make in another couple of years. The world of difference and good I can contribute to my life and to others in a similar amount of time. He may never know how much of a catalyst this became towards the profound positive mark this made on me last year, but looking back, I’m glad I no longer consider this concept of looking forward with optimism “foreign” (once more, another example of me missing the mark on cat posters).

I was all but prepared to not take graduating too seriously, but I couldn’t help but feel a piece of my soul wither out of my body when it was over. Because it meant it was over. I was left to navigate an unplanned yet contained chaos and lucky enough to get pictures with dear friends, before I suddenly rawdogged a twenty-four-minute walk across the city dual-wielding my degree and mortarboard, wearing the nicest clothes and most painful shoes I’ve ever worn to hang out with my family. In retrospect, the unpredictability of it all seems less stressful in writing, but the vague shadow of the end seemed to always loom just outside of my peripheral vision, as if the credits would roll any minute.

But it was nothing a night of celebratory, responsible drinking seemed to make go away, as it naturally does. Reflecting on this portion of the day kind of served as a reminder of the beautiful moments I was capable of experiencing by simply existing: being surrounded by like-minded individuals I care so deeply about, shamelessly expressing my thoughts aloud, tending to the irreplaceable bonds I’ve made and even repairing those I thought werent necessarily damaged but perhaps in need of my attention.

There are still times when I’ll cave and linger on every single missed opportunity, which tend to compound especially on the big days (or at least seem that way in the present). But then something good just happens, without instruction or logic or feeling like it’s been precisely earned. Sometimes you’ll bond over a shared love of a film and take a photo with someone because they asked for it. You’ll pet a dog, try your best to let someone confide in you, laugh about an incredibly niche reference made or well up with tears from watching just a few frames of Princess Mononoke.

And then other times you’ll realise a couple of days later that you lost your wallet. Nice one.

I’ve been long overdue a messy and disjointed concoction of emotions in written word anyway.

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