Where's the wind?

While sitting in the lecture theater for registration this morning and waiting for my name to be called, I felt my heart rate rising along with an unmistakable panic. I chalked it up to new kid jitters, "f*ck, this officially makes me a graduate student" jitters, and the anxiety that comes with bracing yourself for heartbreak.

I filled up the forms, lugged out my Ateneo diploma canister (it was a little lonely, having the only one in the room) when asked to unroll the scroll, dropped the forms in the appropriate boxes, and then walked out the door. That was that. It should have been just that. But, the panic remained.

I took the bus down to my school building for the first time and walked around the empty first floor, already wondering if I truly belonged there, and then took the bus back to my hall (dorm). The ride went along that stretch of forbidden forest, and I felt like running for the sake of running, to spend my panic on that little track they'd made for joggers along the canal, the trees, and the red DANGER signs.

As I walked from my stop to the hall, I saw the sunlight flowing with the water in the canal, and I found myself wishing something I hadn't wished since I was a teenager, full of fantasies about superpowers and no longer having to be where I was. I wished I could fly.

I wanted the wind that played with my skirt to just pick the rest of me up and take me over the canal, over the trees, above the danger zone — above everything. I just didn't want to be earthbound, heavy, while waiting for the final word on how this year will begin.

I've been wanting to write since I got here, but something happened and is still happening, and I'm just waiting for it to complete before I go into detail. Suffice it to say, for now, that things are not going according to the plans we planned for over a year, and I can't do anything but be on the ground and prepare for impact.