Written by Rajlaxmi, a grade 7 student

2021 was a rollercoaster, simply put. While it might have been alright-ish for someone, tragic for someone, good for someone, everyone has differing things to say. But that’s what makes the past year one-of-kind.

2020, on the other was another year that will go down in history. The year the pandemic entered the picture.

While I don’t want to write only on my own self (that would be far too selfish), there are some things that differ for me. Quite the contrary to what most people say, 2020 was a fine year for me. While the end of the year wasn’t very joyful, the rest of the year went by well. My working parents had an opportunity to relax, and I had an excuse to make my grandmother stay with us, rather than returning to her home. After we shifted, the routine slowly started becoming pathetic. A series of enigmatic events, which lead to a novelty lifestyle, and thoughts often going like ‘things will never be the same again’, hope ignited a light.  And I saw an opportunity towards reformation.

The gone year, started quite unhappily, and as the lump in my throat dried up, and one felt hopeful, another lump formed. Dogs dying, COVID-19 entering, hopes flying [out the window], amongst other somber situations.

Yet the year ended quite well, and I head into this year with new aspirations for forming a better version of myself.

As that brings us to an end of my sob story, and to the question I wanted to pose to all of you. Do you have hope?

Hope for a bright future? Hope for our ‘old’ normal to be back? When we just hummed along to any random song on the radio, while going to road trips back to our hometown, our family, or on a road trip to some forest or hills, carefree? When we were like a willow, swinging along with the wind, the light weight making it possible.

So, how do you bring that hope back? That adrenaline that ran through our veins ‘back in our day’? 

People, we’re sounding like our grandparents now! Be thankful for we’ve got a ‘back in our day’ story to tell the future generations, that’s better than anything we might’ve heard before.

To answer the question I posed, again, this is based on my experiences. Find something that makes you happy and stick to it. Isolate what makes you angry, and stay away from it.

That’s what I have to say, but for you all, it might be different. For someone with the hope, good going, champ! For someone having had a melancholy mindset and poor mental inspiration and aspirations, what you’re going through will make you stronger. It won’t matter within a few years, and when you look back, you won’t remember the pain, but only the light at the end of the tunnel.

That brings me to an end of my [maybe?] not-so-inspirational words.

I hope you found yourself in these words. To quote Friedrich Nietzsche, “He who has a why to live, can bear almost anyhow.”

About the title, I know that the past doesn’t lie in the future, but don’t we already get nostalgic thinking about our old normal and the future ahead? We connect the two, as we imagine our life back to normal. I know I do. That’s the logic behind the title. The logic behind life?

Let’s leave that for when we grow up.

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