The summer of 2024 was when twelfth grade had ended. The thought of college started nearing. All the farewells and goodbyes started taking place, freedom started feeling different, and the word “adult” crept up behind you and started to change your perception about life in the outside world. It was at this moment that I decided to escape this feeling. What better way to escape the future than by looking into your old school bag? So that is exactly what I did. I pulled out my dusty, old black colour bag with my school logo plastered boldly in front and opened it. What I saw sent me into a spiral of memories and led me to write to my best friend a long text message explaining how I felt:
“Laddu,
You have no idea what just happened. I’ve been bored out of my mind since school ended, and honestly a little emotional too. But let’s not talk about that for a moment. I randomly decided to go through my school bag in hopes to clear out the junk that has been stored in it for god knows how long. And guess what I found? The ugly drawing we made of ourselves in our farewell sarees during the last week of school! Remember? Those funny stick figure drawings of you in your red saree and me in my purple one. And that wasn’t even the end of it, Laddu. I found crumpled bits of sticky notes from when we used to play tic tac toe. You always lost so horribly in those, made me think I was exceptional at it when in reality I was only slightly less horrible than you. I dug my hand even deeper and retrieved all those chits we passed back and forth in business class deciding when is the perfect time to take a “washroom break” just so we could bunk a good ten minutes. I found our 11th grade accounts final paper crushed into a ball and remembered how badly we flunked that one. One by one, it’s like I was witnessing flashbacks of our school life. The funny pig drawings we would make on scraps of paper, a random eraser of yours that I stole back in 10th, the label from a Nutella jar that we had torn off and planned to give to Shuri, who has a nut allergy and a pink note you had written me when I had the worst day ever. Man, what a time. Crazy to think eight years flew by the way that they did no? Anyway, I’ll text you later. I miss you loser. Call me soon.”
I put the phone down and sighed. After finding old sanitizers, expired chocolates and six rubber bands I realized I basically witnessed my entire school life through these random things in my bag that I’d dumped in without thinking. Getting ready to start a new chapter of my life, but finding fragments of my past sitting at the bottom of my black backpack. It got me thinking that these scraps of paper and junk are what I wish came out of every bag I own. So that every time I clear out my bag, I think of an old friend and send them a message, and I feel that sense of nostalgia and longing. Much like what I feel like right now.Â