Up, Up and Away

(A photo-essay about the brilliant, brilliant 2019 that I had)

2019 has been all about uprooting myself and starting anew.

Which started with shifting from my home of 14 years.

Realizing that I don’t have any reason to keep going back to IBA anymore (not that it stopped me). And realizing that the anxiety-filled career seminars were the only time I could meet my best friends now.

Needed something to pass the panic-filled recruitment period. Made this.

Didn’t help much with the anxiety, but it was time well spent. You have no idea how excruciatingly beautiful the attempt is, unless you have done it. To graduate, to try and make something amazing happen for yourself. To make your mark. And, getting through the torturous amount of waiting that you have to do for all that to happen.

As anxious as that time made me, it was also the best vacation of our lives. So much time to do as many hangouts as you want, and all your friends would be free just like you were. I realized later that the fairy-tale was never going to repeat itself, ever again.

Except for, of course, the Graduation day.

By then, I also got to see my goofy friends getting serious and all of us started getting job-type-of-things, for the very first time.

Travel-wise, this has been the most spectacular year of my life (so far).

Because you do your first solo Eid in a different country all by yourself, only once.

And you get your first Pathao ride only once as well, that too in a different country.

And there is a new daring activity for me every year now. Did paragliding for the first time,

lived in a tent for the first time,

Went to the most randomly planned concert trip ever and had the absolute best time,

Went to the first girls’ trip of my life. We road-tripped from Bangladesh to Bhutan through India!

Which was also our Dill Chahta Hain/ZNMD trip. Farhan Akhtar could take tips from us to write his next script, for real.

We did the toughest hike in Bhutan (Tiger’s Nest) all by ourselves. Lost some blood and tears for this, but came back with peace from another world.

Getting back to the boring job saga. My biggest fear regarding leaving the Cineplex was being without a family. Because STAR Cineplex has always been that, a family. I was afraid of doing work which would make me feel like I am not doing anything worth doing. I was afraid of being without a family.

And I couldn’t be more grateful as I found another family right away. bKash got me a family, and a purpose along with it.

My colleagues encouraged me to go back to school and start my Masters, and have been tremendously supportive of everything that I do. Ever since I have started this part of my life, life seems to have been put on a fast forward.

I always used to see myself as this little girl, carrying her weight somehow in this world, crawling slowly, somewhat finding her way. This year, I have had the opportunity to learn that I am neither a little girl anymore, and nor am I supposed to crawl.

I can fly, and that’s how I will always remember 2019,

as my year of learning to balance the blue and the red out during my flight.

With peace, courage, love and gratitude.