This was the end. This was the end of another chapter. Excitement had come and would come again but for now the knowledge that this was the end weighed down on my heart. As I trailed behind my friends Callisto and Kyros each step was a reminder that time never stopped and that soon this ugly hallway would only be a memory. Usually change never bothered me much but the knowledge that I would be graduating had me reeling with fear. How could I go out into the world and represent myself when I was unsure of who I was? I continued walking down the hallway, crowded with laughing students but as I turned the corner I stopped. I stood to the side of the hallway watching a group of girls laugh and talk. One of the girls cought my eye. There was something familiar in the way she laughed, the way there was a sparkle of deep amusement in her eye, it reminded me of myself in a way. I remembered laughing the way she did. I had sat at an antique wooden table eating Indian bread. I closed my eyes remembering.
On the whole, my parents despised routine. To the best of their ability they shunned it and steered as clear as one could go from it. There was however, one exception. Sundays. My Sundays were day so prominent and uniform in my memory that each Sunday of my life had slowly blended into each other to become one memory. Living in Victoria, I wouldn’t usually wake to the chirping of birds and the shining sun. Instead, each Sunday morning I would slowly open my eyes to a room lit by the silvery light of the clouds and the plopping sounds of rain as it landed in a puddle. Would blink blearily and listen to the sounds of my little sister’s feet slapping our wooden floors as she crept about the silent house. Once I was up, I would begin the long wait. At around 11:00 am, the door to my parents’ room would slowly open and then it was a race! I had to get their first! I saw my sister coming and leaped into my parents bed, winning! Once the drapes were drawn, and a collective sigh had gone through the four of us, as we saw that the rain had not dissipated, my father would begin to read. It was a tradition of sorts, for him to read a chapter of two from a book and then when he finished, for my sister and I to squeal and plead for more.
For breakfast my mother would make either puri, nan or pancakes. The kitchen was always a busy place. While my mother made breakfast, I would make the Chai and Shazia would leap about the kitchen getting in the way. Coffee, Chai, yogurt, honey, and the table was set.
Breakfast time was a cacophony of sounds, My father’s loud, deep voice, my mother’s complaint that we did not appreciate her enough, my sister’s gleeful hand rubbing as she eyed the Nutella, my loud and sometimes hysterical laughter and the sounds of classical Indian music. The familiar smells of sweet honey, and puri would rise from the bright, yellow plates that sat on the glossy wooden table. Together the sound of music and the warm smell of food created a happy bubble with the four of us within it.
I opened my eyes and it hit me. My identity was incomplete. I was a plant; not yet a flowered. With that realization, I new it was ok. I couldn’t define who I was yet, but that was ok because the pieces hadn’t stopped moving, they hadn’t settled yet. I looked down at the battered black notebook that I had carried around for years, writing whenever I got the chance. I turned to the last page and wrote two words. THE END. I had it wrong, this was an ending but it was also a beginning.