Away

October 2022

I have never been away from home. Well I have but it didn't really feel like. A boarding highschool that
was just a kilometer away surely did count. I enjoyed highschool except for the compulsory dawn classes
and theft. Yes theft. I don't want to believe that there's a person who graduated from public high school
without ever being a victim of student burglary, because I sure was the thieves favorite. You're prolly
thinking that I was this rich girl with alot of stuff in box to attract such. That's wrong, infact I had a very
rusty old metal box inherited from my elder sister who also inherited from the eldest one. Inside the box
all I had were books from the family library and the few tiny school clothes I had because I was such a
tiny little thing back then. I still am.

Life having sucked the optimism out of me, I became this not caring person in the last year of high. Slept
for most part of that year both in school and at home. Teachers couldn't hide it anymore, they'd given
up on me. Thanks to my parents intelligent genes I surprisingly got a grade to the university.

"So, which course are going to take?" Dad would ask every opportunity he got to talk to me.

"I'm still thinking."

It's been months since I started thinking. I didn't have anything in mind. I was not thinking.

I want to do fabric design. That's my secret.No one needs to know that. So no one does.

It's been six months since we got the results. I have read all the books on the shelves and in the
neighborhood. I was reading more than I did any other thing. Cooking reading, walking reading, people
watching tv I was in the books. My mother couldn't stand it anymore.

"How about literature?" asked my dad.

"Yes." How did I miss it. It was right there all along. I was passionate about literature. That's sick.

I applied on the same day and ended up taking English Literature at undergrad.

My sister accompanied me to enroll at the campus. Packed inside a 14 seater van almost 30 of us, I
could tell right there and then campus is ugly. At least the institution was beautiful minus all the qeues I
had to make for that day. Have I told you about the sun? Scorching.

"And this is the life I've chosen." I disappointedly told myself as I settled in the room I was allocated on
campus. Spending my first night miles away from home with three strangers and an uncertain
tomorrow.
I could not sleep. I had all these images of all the young men and women that are here today all brought
by their parents or guardians and we're so excited about the whole campus life. What am I feeling about
all these? We'll find out.

Seventeen hours later is when I woke up.

It was not a dream! I'm still here. A freshman.

Great.

Food. That's the only thing I could let myself think of. So I went to get me some.

I never attended orientation week. I will survive, why wouldn't I.

****

My freshman year was majorly me in denial. I don't know denial of what. I did terribly in the exams and I
didn't have a social life.

For sophomore year, I had made friends, two. I wouldn't ask for more. I did better in academics but then
the pandemic struck.

After the pandemic things didn't go back to normal. Moved off campus. Enlarged my social circle I even
started drinking. I tried new stuff, like believe it or not, roller skating. I tried having sex, I couldn't. My
boyfriend for one week ghosted me, fell into depression I went home.

After recovering from depression I went back to school and became this wild party girl that I couldn't
Identify. The rest part of campus moved swiftly and there I was, graduating!