“Who doesn’t know what I’m talking about
Who’s never left home, who’s never struck out
To find a dream and a life of their own
A place in the clouds, a foundation of stone

Many precede and many will follow
A young girl’s dream no longer hollow
It takes the shape of a place out west
But what it holds for her, she hasn’t yet guessed”*

As I stand in the check-in queue for my flight to Singapore, I see the perturbed eyes of a mother as she lets her son go through the security. She seems to have hugged her the third time and asked him the umpteenth time if he has his tickets and passport. His father stands grim next to the mother, acting nonchalant about what is happening. His two aunts each landed a big kiss on his cheek and made him blush. A little girl, who seemed like his sister was holding onto his hand till he hugged her goodbye. The son seemed to have an amusing combination of embarrassment and excitement reflected off his face.

The boy joined my queue and asked me for a pen to fill in the immigration forms. “Are you moving to Singapore?”, I asked him. “YES! I am going to study there”, looking around towards the gate he added, “some friends of mine are supposed to join they are not here yet.”

This made me smile. It seemed not so long ago I was hustling and bustling with the excitement of moving out of Kolkata, my home, and finally having the freedom to make my mistakes and create my niche in the world. I had read about great men and heard stories of my great grand parents who were freedom fighters. It finally was my turn to do something, to be someone.

The nervousness of attending my first class will never be forgotten. Memories of the first night I got drunk, which were followed by many, are still fresh. The guy who dropped me back and the girl who woke me up with a Dispirin and coffee and said “you had a good night, didn’t you”, the absolute necessity to be awake at nights and sleep by day light, to go through the anxiety of submitting an assignment 2 seconds before deadline just to repeat it every single time, the drinking games and the truth & dare rounds, the first year hook ups to the more serious final year couples, long phone calls and midnight gossip on love and sex – it all seems like yesterday.

Amongst all the fun and the joy, one tripped and fell a dozen times, picked up the pieces and started over. We loved, we hated, we cried and we laughed. We found friends in strangers and strangers in friends.

And now, the four years of graduation are gone with the wind and we are back yet again at the brink of yet another road to discovery. I haven’t done anything great and neither made any mark in the world that any another graduate hasn’t. Now is the time to work our asses off, find friends in colleagues, make a mark in the world which is more like be a part of the rat race and wait in eagerness for the weekends – sounds very “exciting” indeed!

And when I am at this brink, I wonder what I want. I look back at my days at home, I miss it but I know I can’t go back. The rollercoaster ride called university is over and yet again I can’t go back. Someone once said the body represents the past, the breath the present and the mind the future. If that is the case, my body is 23 years older and half my life is over. Yes half my life, no one lives 100 years these days and if 60 is the average life span am almost half way through. I am breathing and I am alive and that is my present. But my mind is blank; I see nothing that I haven’t done and I am striving to achieve.

I have been born, lived through the mysteries of childhood, went through the anxieties of almost adult hood, fallen in and out of love, tried every vice possible, travelled the world, earned my first pay check and a few more to follow, seen death – cremated a parent and grand parents, ran a business, experienced being a mother and almost been a home-maker. At this point, seem to have done everything that one looks forward to do and see nothing that excites me or gives me reason to take the one step forward.

That makes me question, what is a complete life – one that has clocked the 100 years of almost emptiness or one that has lived every breath in those 23 years? The wide open spaces in my mind right now makes me wonder is it the room for me to make my mistakes and play the high stakes or is it the signs of a complete life with existence to follow.

“She traveled this road as a child
Wide eyed and grinning, she never tired
But now she won’t be coming back with the rest
If these are life’s lessons, she’ll take this test”*

*Wide Open Spaces, Dixie Chicks