What do new beginnings mean for us exactly?
The heels of hell term is as unforgiving as fast-acting quicksand, but slowly and surely, we’re almost at the end. We escaped it before it almost swallowed us whole. And now, with only half our senior year left, we’re overcome by the stillness that awaited us above the soil: a stillness humidified by a hot air of nostalgia and an ever-looming echo of the phrase “new beginnings”.
I predict that we’re gonna begin to hear this phrase a lot, from our teachers, our parents, our university advisors and our distant relatives on post-covid holiday reunions.
“New beginnings”. The diction is odd. A faintly threatening mixture of a dark dramatic tunnel and sparkly fairy glitter. Perhaps that’s just me projecting. The word “beginning” by itself implies a commencement of some sort. “New” seems present simply for additional emphasis. On the one hand, it connotes opportunity-filled excitement, but to me it feels like a passive aggressive shove off a cliff.
It may seem much of my skepticism exists on the basis of my fear to actively embrace these new beginnings, and that is true for the most part. Because to me, a “new beginning” can only exist after a “finite end” and so, the phrase serves as a constant reminder of all the things that will soon be distant memory. That we are all moving at different paces, splitting to different wavelengths and headed towards different destinations.
Some of us have already had our last birthday at home, our last visit to the paediatrician, our last child discount, or our last wave of anxiety after the phrase “ID, please.” And these moments all happen much too often and much too fast, each one springboarding us away from one another with no confines of “next school year” to keep us from tumbling farther and farther away. To me, what this phrase is really saying is “wave goodbye to everything you’ve ever known, shove yourself in the hands of fate and at least you aren’t dead”.
The quotes that will fill various graduation speeches will speak of us leaving high school to see “doors opening as others close”. They will tell us to celebrate new beginnings amidst sad endings; to look forward to new beginnings even if there seem to be none ahead; to ignore everything else but focus on new beginnings. By then, we will have finished IB and there will be virtually no responsibilities weighing down our process of preparation for these new beginnings. Whether it be university, national service or even a career, these beginnings hurl towards us in silence, in fear, despite ourself. They give us just enough time to look back, shed a tear, go to Koh Sam, and finally come to the realisation that these new beginnings are coming for us, whether we want them to or not.
Until these huge new experiences start, we will each still encounter our own small new beginnings every single day, slowly but surely taking us further down our individual flight paths. We depart from the same place but fly father and farther a part each day. Slowly, our experiences create a complex web of journeys, often intersecting with one another but only by simple coincidence. Mostly, we’re found on our own illuminated line, as little dots all moving toward different destinations. The view from this flight radar forms an undiscernable pattern, something like a fresh game of pickup sticks. And just like that silly childhood game, I will carefully study every intersection point and be grateful that I have them in order to make my next move.
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