Hello, my name is….
I am scared, worried sick even. Fearful, to some extent, at the prospect of a supposingly long awaited homecoming, of returning to a whole brave new world I left behind three autumns ago, of what that life had become.
I left that world full of anticipation; some came true, many exceeded beyond my imagination. There were some disappointments along the way, but none less important than the other. This world is part of my being, both the good, the bad, and the ugly.
I used to look forward to go back home, back to what I left. But now uncertainty shrouds this hopefulness. The uncertainty of what remained as it was and what that changed, of chances that lie in patience and those that galloped never looking back, of familiar faces that hung back and of those that moved on in my absence.
Sometimes I wish, that in this next phase of my life, I am leaving for a brand new place, to a place that I know no one and nobody knows me.
I suppose I won’t return unchanged, untainted, unhurt from all these seasons. Certainly they would also be so? I am sorry if I appear to be distanced, detached, passive even, for sometimes I truly think that no place remains the same forever. Apart from the brilliant memories I’ve collected here, I have also brought back the pain and disappointments.
Life here and there would definitely be different. Lectures will be different; people will be different; expectations will be different; relationship will be different. The main question is: how do I cope with them? I know one thing for sure; everything starts anew.
If you should receive me, remember that I am no longer the same son, student, teacher, friend or companion that you sent off 36 months ago. I return not as a better or improved version of the old. I return as a brand new person. If you should receive me, see me through untainted glasses. Or better, get to know me as if I’m a stranger you met for the first time, sitting quietly right at the corner of the pub, toasting himself to his own health. If you should receive me, come and know me again.
For I would also see you in a different light, through a brand new glasses call “experience”, getting to know you for a first time through these lens. If you are terrified, just bear in mind that I am ten times more afraid than you.
If you truly love me….please, bear with me.