“Here’s to my future, here’s to my yesterday.”
                                                          – Yesterday; Imagine Dragons 

Contrary to whatever is going through that brilliant little mind of yours right now, this is not a blog post about different gas stations in Malaysia. Holidays may have clouded my head with boredom but not to that extent.

As briefly mentioned in the previous post, I have graduated high school for around two months now. The holidays are fleeting and while I am more than eager to get back to school, it’s different. I’m off to college now, a brand new chapter, another journey. While I am a sucker for getting comfortable in plastic chairs in an air-conditioned room trying to remember people’s names and shamelessly miss math, this isn’t just “another” transition.

High school has served me well, no doubt. It has been a gas station for me. Call me a sentimental, a life-romantic but I like to think my life is a car embarked on an endless journey. High school is the gas station for it has taught me all the things I need to be equipped with before speeding off to the highway of adulthood.

I have learned how to fix tires that will one day be slashed by others on my journey, how to not stare blankly into headlights and even cultivated an entire playlist of my life for the road. There are so many memories and lessons inked in this brain of mine that I will never be able to erase no matter how hard I try.

Change is a scary thing and so is its lesser-known brother moving on. Both will knock upon your door simultaneously despite the lack of invitation. They will take you by surprise when you least expect it and toss you into an abyss—at least you’ll think it’s one. Then, they will soothe you and cajole you into slowly finding your way back. In the end, it might not be the same, but you will, after their ever visit, grow stronger into the person you were meant to be.

I have always been bad with the brothers. Why trade the comfort of a home you know oh-so-well for hanging off a cliff? Who in their sane mind would agree to those terms? As it turns out, everyone. Like it or not, we all have to grow out of our comfort zone. The longer you stay, the worse you’ll wither – believe me, I’ve learned my lesson a long time ago.

As college draws its dawn, I sit in my car, foot on the pedal ready to go. I’m not leaving my previous chapter behind. I’m trying to continue the story with the same characters and new ones in a different environment. As I drive away into the stars my mind will replay all the events: walking into school for the first day and falling with my face down on the pavement, having to introduce myself and have my name mistaken for that of a boy’s, debating with my classmates in the most polite fashion, singing at the top of my lungs, cutting open bloody parts in Biology, voluntarily killing butterflies upon a very first crush, falling in love with numbers and beyond, picking up a keyboard and letting my heart flutter with words, running around New York City, crying over countless movies, sneaking cheating tricks in the classroom, drowning in my own tears when I didn’t get an A (this is indeed quite true), winning awards and losing them, making friendships and letting go of them, having my phone confiscated by a teacher even, and the most valuable one of them all: finding myself amidst all of the beautiful chaos.

I am a writer. Which is why it’s absurd that I cannot comprehend how I fail to find the words to explain how lucky I am to have been on the adventure I have been on. I cannot wait to see what my friends and myself will amount to in life, but I know it will be as spectacular as the fireworks on the fourth of July.

So here’s to those I’ve learned from, those I’ve loved. The ones I hurt and the ones who picked me up. You didn’t come this far to only come this far.

Farewell, gas station.