I used to float, now I just fall down.
I used to know, but I’m not sure now.
What I was made for.
What was I made for?
The words that echoed faintly in my mind as my eyes flickered open.
The bedside clock chimed 6:30 am as I sluggishly rose from the bed.
The blanket of dawn was still heavily draped as birds chipped in the distance and crickets croaked.
The air had an emptiness that seemed to compete with that which I felt within me.
Alive I was, but living, I wasn’t so sure.
Yet another day in this school.
The lecturer’s voice bounced off the tip of my ears as my attention drifted about in fragmented pieces.
Each day was like the former, like a broken music box on repeat.
I was amongst people yet the loneliest soul that ever lived.
The little things of life had grown to give me no pleasure, asides eating which had led to my often stress-eating.
The dreadful classes thankfully ended and I boarded a cab back to my hostel.
As I waited for the cab to fill, my eyes roamed my environment taking in the bevy of people going and coming.
I recognized the lady walking in the far distance and predicted she was going to board our cab.
She was an often face at this bus stop at this particular time.
Moments when we both boarded the same cab she’d usually pass my route, ‘though I’d alight before her.
She had a little boy who was very burbly and had a dimple on his right cheek.
She hopped in and habitually gave him a Caprisonne.
I had come to find out she was a teacher from our rides.
Another old man briskly passed as the cab started, yet another familiar stranger.
Newspaper, I mumbled to myself as we drove off.
From the side mirror, I saw him indeed pick up a copy of the day’s newspaper from the roadside vendor stand.
As the cab sped down the road, I realized I sort of knew this people__the familiar strangers.
I wondered who I was to them__If they knew or had noticed me like I had them.
I thought of what they saw.
Did they see the void that threatened to consume me?
The constant battle to give in or give up?
The search for a meaning to my living?
The thirst for a purpose to my existence?
My gaze flickered across to the cab driver and took in the web of veins that spiraled across his hands on the wheels as I thought to myself.
Was this who he always wanted to be, his life’s purpose, or were there many untold stories hidden from the eyes?
I alighted the cab and made my way back into the hostel flashing an express-delivery smile at all who called out, greeted or crossed my path.
As I stood in front of my mirror whilst wrapping my virgin curls in a scarf in preparation for my night rest, I pondered yet again to myself.
Who am I and what was I made for?
My reflection stares right back at me as my questions diffuse into the night air.
I stared real hard into the mirror, perhaps, in hopes that the answers would materialize.
Sighing to myself, I placed my glasses on the bedside table and bid myself to sleep.
Sleep however seemed to have plans of its own as I tossed in bed and hissed in frustration.
Suddenly, a voice spoke in my mind that made my whole body still.
It felt as if my inner defence system had awakened with fighting instincts, or perhaps, the heavens had finally heard my call.
It was a 4-word sentence that seemed to answer all my questions at once.
You are not alone.
I was not alone, I desperately repeated to myself.
I wasn’t the only one out of the about 8 billion people on earth going through this phase.
I clung unto these words and repeated them like a mantra until I finally drifted away in the arms of sleep.
The next day was different in every way.
For once in a very long time, it didn’t feel like a cycle__a repeat of each past day.
Rather, It felt like a new page in a story__my story.
I felt a determination like never before to maintain it so.
Although my course of study might have chosen me,
Although I wasn’t sure of what to do with myself or my life’s purpose,
I finally had a sense of direction.
I was going to embark on an intense journey of self-discovery even though I didn’t know where that would lead me.
I felt a semblance of peace.
As I took a last look at myself before leaving my room, the question from the past night resurfaced in my mind and I realized with a start that I wasn’t as unsettled anymore.
I had an answer.
I made a final swoop to my hair and chinned up at my reflection as I made my way out of my hostel room.
I am Gwendolyn Teirbron, and it’s a new day.