Pop goes the bubble

Cliches are there because the generations who have come before us know what they are taking about.

And when they said college years are the best in your life, they were telling the truth. I did not go abroad, I went to the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) and the four years I spent there were not lost in a haze of parties and smoke.

They were spent sitting on campus, sipping tea with friends and studying in the library. College was a place where friends became family, where a dorm room became home and where you gained confidence to be who you wanted. Happiness came from small things; a good conversation, sitting on the pathway or walking through the rain.

Those years were the best of my life because I lived in a bubble where I did not have to deal with the outside world. Now, I am back home where suddenly I have been pushed into the real world where parents have a say, where I have to wake up in the morning to go to work, and where I can no longer sleep the day away just because “I feel like it”.

This is not to say that I do not like my life or I am unhappy because I do and I am, but I miss the feeling of my biggest worry being a Sociology exam and having to do laundry because I was out of clean clothes. There is a bond that is formed by attending the same university whether it is LUMS or any other institution. You have seen the same people every day for four years; you have eaten in the same dining hall, walked the same path to class, lived the same life and been a part of one community. That memory of this foundation will remain but it is no longer tangible save with a few. The bubble has burst and now it is time to grow up.