Somewhere online

Hey you.

I saw you on LinkedIn the other day. Five years on, a job in a company that sounds famous. I don’t understand what you do — there are new age terms in your title that sound important. I expect my profession sounds the same to you too.

I wonder how you’re doing. I wonder if you’re ok. Once, we shared a roof — a college canteen , an auditorium, an exam hall. We’ve never spoken but I know you through her, who knows him, who knows him, who knows her, who knows you.

We’ve passed each other at university. Gentle nods and waves. Once, we were part of the same broadcast list for tech festival news, another time you lived across from my roommate’s friend’s room in the college dorm. Like I said before, I don’t know you but I know of you and I wonder how you’re doing, I wonder if you’re ok.

Have you found love? Your smileys litter comment sections on my feed. “Congratulations bro! Way to go :)”. And you? What do you celebrate?

Are you well? Are you happy? Do you still dream?

I find it so strange that once upon a time we sat two stairwells apart.

At college, you wanted to join the theater. You were bullied for your skinny legs. You were in love with someone I knew.

Do you still believe in those dreams?

I think about how someone like you might view me. Then I worry I need to prove that I am aggressively happy.

“She used to write you know. Back in the day”, I imagine you say. The past tense is incriminating.

I wonder if you are married, have children or are incredibly online elsewhere perhaps under a pseudonym. Some of the other mutual of ours — I have a diary of their lives. Everything they eat, they love, they believe. “Even how they pray”, you might add with a wink.

A decade ago, political hangovers didn’t last this long. The sourness from our tongues evaporated faster. We were lighter — in mind and body. With age, we are less invincible but stubborn in other ways. Everything around us is kinetic, everything flows. Nothing is a rehearsal anymore.

Those who are rooted in some way are viewed in disdain by those who aren’t ; considered boring, cliche, forgotten.

Those who are free are viewed bitterly and enviously: “Can you not hold anything down? You are missing out on comfort. You don’t know how happy you can be.”

I wonder how many of us actually believe we made it or are yet to make it. Is it the fame, the money, the love, the job, the career? Is it the happiness? Is it the highlights? Is it the privilege?

We could have, should have — but did we? We wanted to, we expected to — can we still? I look at my age. I look at when I started my university. I cannot believe the difference between the two. What have I done in between? Suddenly, everything is quiet. This is life I think — this is moving on.

I think of how special we felt as young children and I envy the immaturity that possessed us. If that seems strange, I admit I don’t know why I do so. Don’t get me wrong. I love my life and I bet you do too.

Yet, despite the countless variety of coffees, tragedies, romances, grocery lists, broken souvenirs, misplaced socks and stomach infections that pockmark our individual lives, I wonder who we’ve become.

What parts of us will we find has stayed the same and what parts are adopted by the new worlds we’ve explored? Would we flinch when someone shows us a version of our past or look fondly? There are no earthly answers for these questions.

But unfortunately, neither can I send these to you on your LinkedIn inbox.

Instead, I say:

“Hey you. Congratulations on your five years! :)”

And log myself out to think about these thoughts.