“Thanks for the memories
Even though they weren’t so great” – ‘Thnks fr th Mmrs’ by Fall Out Boy
To Uncle T, Payton, Zara, Pace, C, Aya, Jina, Garrett, Luka, Immanuel, Fatma, Gillian, Jacob, Josh, David, Marcela, Grace, Jason, Micheal, Nandini, Marco
Transition phases are always hard. I spent the last 11 months working on my masters degree. During this time, all I knew was reading and studying, making lesson plans, staying up to read more, and completing everything my program demanded of me. And now, I have no idea what to do with myself as I sit around for the next 2 months waiting for my work authorization to kick in.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I knew I would be waiting around long before I started waiting around and this journey came to an end. But everything that led to this end was something I could’ve never prepared myself for.
Let’s go back a week before graduation.
I didn’t have anything planned because things never go according to plansand it only sets you up for disappointment. In short, I didn’t have much expectations and yet, I was surprised. My last week was supposed to be a combination of socialization and wrapping up my program. I had two days of attending presentations (something I was dearly looking forward to as it was the last academic day), and on one of these days, I would present myself, a graduation dinner held by my roommates’ program in which I was invited as a plus one, and lots of packing and good times.
The area I lived in was, and still is, special – it was my first home, I got to know the people of the community, I made great friends who became my family, I met people who were wholesome and took care of me when I was incapable of doing so, I found my first tattoo shop that made me smile more than anything, I met strangers who scared me and I met strangers who only wanted to have a conversation despite living out of their car. The house I lived in was equally special – my roommates became my blood and I cried and laughed with them. It was a safe space for people to come and cry, and be vulnerable.
The name ‘36 Cherry Street’ will always hold a special place in my heart for the memories those four walls hold and what that place has given me. Yes, it was hard, it was expensive and it wasn’t easy, but it was comforting and it was home.
Now- graduation week.
The week essentially entailed celebrating my 11 months of working so hard, and saying my farewell to the place, institution and people who became my daily normal.
Instead, I ended up in the ER with a fever of 104 degrees, low blood pressure and my untreated anemia getting the best of me, and bedridden till the day of the graduation. Nothing about this week felt celebratory. I spent the days and nights of that week crippled in bed with muscle pain and chills, weeping like a child thinking, “Why me?”
Above all that, I think I had my heart broken. I wasn’t supposed to, but I did. My last day in the house, in that area with nothing but pain, both physical and emotional. Physically I was barely able to speak or say my farewells. All I could do was smile and cry every time someone hugged me and said something meaningful.
Out of everything that went sour, one thing that really broke me was my pseudo-heartbreak. “Don’t bother” was all I could think of replying, when I received a text, at the last hour, saying they wanted to say goodbye. It’s perhaps the top 10 hardest things I’ve had to do because I made the decision, because I was so vulnerable and weak, and because it’s still fresh – why bother at the last hour when you didn’t bother the entire day? Makes me regret not spending more time in breaking my heart by daydreaming about the person I’ve had a crush on since Spring. It’s complicated as in anything involving the heart. There’s more context to this story and my pseudo-heartbreak is a story for another day, but all you need to know is, I’m tired of living in a world where people find it so easy to be rude; where kindness and decency is a rarity.
Despite my heart yearning for 36 Cherry Street and trying to find a way to make that palace my permanent home, I can’t help but fixate on my last week – missed memories, missed farewells, missed celebrations, and believing shallow words.
Transitioning is never easy. But I’ve had a stream of bad luck with transitions – when I graduated from university, I lost one of my best friends and was more at a loss than I could ever imagine; when I transitioned from Bangladesh to USA for my graduate studies, there was nothing but arguments and one-sided sacrifices; when I visited Bangladesh in January I was met with death and inconsideration the day before I returned to America. And now, this. The gift that keeps giving.
With all these unfortunate events following my trail, I find myself thinking out loud, “Why do I always have to make the best out of a situation? Why can’t situations just be manageable?”, “What’s the point of throwing good into the world when the world doesn’t care?”, “When is it my turn?”
You could tell me that I have it good and that not everyone gets to do a masters abroad, or have a family that’ll fund my transitions, or that I have people who care. However, you can’t really compare your limit for things that go wrong and how they impact you to another person’s. These things may have been major and devastating for me, maybe it’d not be to you. I’m not anyone else but myself – a being who just doesn’t understand how the world works, who can no longer force herself to see the brighter side of things or see the light at the end of the tunnel.
I don’t know how I’ll feel about these things in the next few months, but right now, all I am is upset and questioning why I encounter these unfortunate incidents.
Transitions and ends are meant to be bittersweet. But all this was, well, exclusively bitter.
