taking sweet time

i just got this email from my best buddy, N. she's been very distressed lately, saying that her life is hard and she needs to struggle with her A levels n stuff. she can't accept her new friends yet and she feels lonely. she hates being far away from home and she misses all our old friends miserably. in short, i call it the new life adjustment syndrome. hmm, i wonder if that's any different from me when i first entered my own new stage of life???

frankly, d first time i got here, a university i wud seriously not mention, i faced difficulties too. the freedom. the healthy competition. the stifling new surroundings. curiously new friends. being used to live in a protected shell of boarding school, and lived with the same frens 4 almost five years, i found myself having a slight culture shock. not in a very harmful way, it's just that, i must say, the first few weeks, i felt extremely lonely although all of my classmates stuck to each other as if we've known each other before. yeah, knowing very different yet similar in a way personalities from all the other classmates expanded my view of friends. people are just people. i love to watch how we all unravel ourselves. we all are a lil bit defensive when we first meet people. we portrayed a different image, just to ensure there's no insecurity in ourselves and tried to look our best in front of our new friends. we treated everyone nicely in the nicest possible way to avoid striking any unwanted feelings like anger or irritation. and TRUST, is extremely a humongous concept.

what i learnt was, true, we are all different. there were some of my friends that i realized i have not been able to know them entirely because of their hidden enigmatic behaviour. not hypocrites, just they don't open up yet. and i myself didn't appreciate the chances i got to get to know my own friends. being exuberant and lively, i love making new friends but the drawback was, i can be a little too impatient. i nagged my own curiosity. i just couldn't get it why people had to hide themselves in d first place. my mind was overflowing with desirable questions. why this and why that? why wouldn't things happen as i expect them to be? what do they like? what are their beliefs? immatured thinking of mine. but then, one friend told me directly that i was being pretty obvious if not, irritating of getting to know people. her words struck me. maybe i pushed too hard. maybe my pushy dominant attitude scare people off. or maybe i was plain annoying. (^_^)

after a while, i controlled myself. i decided to give people time. i chillax myself. not saying that my mind is not at all filled with everflowing questions, it's just that, i figured out that we all need to take our own sweet time. adjusting ourselves require many different skills and adapting our personality in other people's presence can be quite tiring. some people are just flexible while some just find d new environment an anathema and they need to search their own panacea first.

to my dear friend, N, chill. you have to be strong. we have to be strong. don't be scared of adjusting to your new life. let go of the past does not mean you are forgetting it. just embrace the present so that we all live in the sometimes abstruse reality of moving to a new stage of life. i know, i was being childish when i called you, crying in the phone just because i couldn't take in my new life. it's hard to trust new people that entered your life. but, one advice, live and let live. be happy because you want to be happy. not forcing yourself to paste on that fake smile to class so that you'll look joyful. no, just live your day like there is no other tomorrow.

i took my time anyway.