slip-sliding away…..

Flashback: December 2001. (21 years old)

Final Summer School exams,
and possibly the last time
I’d ever see her again.

The conclusion
of a month of emotional turmoil –
an awakening
which would have far-reaching consequences,
as one need was born;
yet it was only a catalyst
for the crucial journey that would follow.

That month exhausted me –
emotionally and mentally –
the accounting course a mere platform
for what transpired.

Flashback: 12th December 2002. (22 years old)

Exactly 22 years ago –
also a Thursday;
the night of my graduation.
The end of four years
as a lonely outsider
at this campus
which housed my young life.

Grad was painful:
uncertainty over my future;
still no companion
with which to share life;
and anxiety
over what lay ahead.

For I had no offers.
No plans.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.

Not even a part-time job
at the Writing Centre,
where I’d interviewed,
and felt I could excel.

The future
was wide open.
As open as the vast sky I’d sit within
and look out to
from the beloved rooftop I’d only discover three years later.

Graduation a happy occasion for my parents,
yet a devastating milestone for me.

Flashback: December 2005. (25 years old)

My first Summer working here –
back where my adult life began.
But this time
more self-assured and secure…
yet still agonisingly void
of the goal I obsessed over
in the years since I left.

An empty campus –
aside from grad week –
and so much time and space
to wander
and wonder…
A beautiful freedom
after an unwelcomed introduction
to the adult working world.

Flashback: December 2007. (27 years old)

I finally made it!
Dream fulfilled.
Beloved graduating
(albeit delayed),
and me being there
for celebratory pictures.

The early daze
of a life together,
just weeks before cruel reality
would snap us out
of our newly-wed reverie.

Flashback: December 2008. (28 years old)

I’m back
in the dull working world.
Surrounded by car dealerships
in a job I didn’t yet realise
was dead-end.

We visited my home town that Summer:
the meet and greet tour
for those who didn’t attend
our hastily-arranged wedding;
our seed already growing
as we enjoyed the final months
before baby-made-three.

Life would forever change after that…
As I shed
the old me,
and grew
into fatherhood.

Flashback: December 2011. (31 years old)

We’ve just returned from Hajj –
purity and euphoria steadily fading,
as life in the real world
eats away
at the better me ambitions I held
just weeks earlier.

Thirteen years of erosion since then,
and no sniff of a chance
to go back
to the home of my soul –
Madinah,
the seat of tranquility.

Flashback: December 2012. (32 years old)

I’m back at this place,
though not quite on campus.
A new seed growing
as I wonder
how life will again change
once he/she arrives.

Flashback: December 2018. (38 years old)

My last international trip:
a 3-legged, month-long break
which reset and replenished
this tired soul.

Flash to now: 12th December 2024. (44 years old)

Sitting at this library desk,
letting memories wash over me –
flow through me
onto the page,
not knowing why,
or how this will conclude,
as work beckons once more.

Flash forward: December 2030. (50 years old)

If I live to see this month,
I will be half a century old;
likely feeling
more physical strain
from an ageing vessel
which has housed this weary soul
through lifetime after lifetime…
so much change.

Will I still be here –
within (or outside) these hallowed buildings?
Will I still be writing?
Will I be content
with what my life is at that point?

Will my spirit
be reborn? –
refreshed and brought close
to the One Who
made me,
let me drift,
then pulled me back
all those decades ago?

Only He knows
what will be,
and what will not.
And the task at hand – as ever –
is simply to do the best
with what we’ve got,
until,
one day,
the book closes on us –
no more chapters to write.
No more chances to edit.

Just a long, lonely wait
for the Day
when we revisit it all.

May that Reading be
the best we’ve ever read;
evidence calling us
to Paradise, into which we’ll tread.