Eighteen summers have gone by and it all still feels the same. Reviewing the decisions I made and cherishing the memories of the dearest ones who parted ways and of people who no more stand beside me to tell me if I’m ready. Ready to take on the world out there — a world full of challenges and uncertainties!

In fact, I’ve never passed a moment without someone holding my hands, and there I’ve always found, if no one else, my parents in every single step and friends who I could count on. But life has never stopped for anyone, it moves on as the dearest ones part company and strangers are befriended. Even wounded emotions heal as time passes by. Life is a mystery and you wonder at times if the decisions you took in life were all right. One is bound to make mistakes but always has the chance to amend them. Except when emotions deceive; no remedy, then!

Today I stand, my mind bogged in dilemma and overwhelming despair even as my smiles melt away. I turn around only to find myself completely alone in a world full of strangers. I find myself standing all alone and helpless confronting my worst fears. I seek for the answers, but there’s none coming and the hands that once had so much to give all at once are empty. Only if I’d known that this is the way with the world! Only if I’d known that the people I thought would always stand beside me would all of a sudden abandon me. Ah! What a fool I’ve been to believe that it all would last till eternity.

“Mysterious” might sound farfetched but there’s no other word to explain how certain questions remain unanswered in life. You never know when life decides to take away your happiness, stifle your independence and saddle you with responsibilities you’re least prepared to shoulder. And no matter how much you abhor it, fate always has the last word.

It’s now time to bid adieu to those carefree days.

It’s time I learnt to live with uncertainties, celebrate a day of new friendships and leave the old ones behind. It’s time I learnt to smile with my newfound happiness and live with

the new hope sprouting from the deathbed of old sorrows. I turn around and see the child in me left a long way back. It’s a different world growing up.