College

It’s only been two weeks since my MA classes started and it already feels like too much to handle. Welcome to real life, they say. This is how it’s going to be from now on. And honestly, in another time, without a wheelchair and possibly with a Bullet of my own, I would have been enjoying this hectic schedule to the fullest. I might not even have been here in Vadodara for so long - a hostel life during college has always been a dream of mine. But right now, I’m just trying to cope.

It’s tough on me, climbing the stairs everyday to class, sitting for hours at a stretch, hardly doing any physiotherapy yet trying to improve my swimming performance. My muscles are becoming stiff and it hurts. The physical discomfort sits there in the back of my mind making it difficult to focus in class. How long has it been since I changed my position? Is it time to do my next round of push-ups yet? Maybe I should have brought my pain relief gel. It’s all manageable till the professor announces they won’t share the PPT they are presenting so they hope you took notes. Is it time to take my washroom break yet? I hope my bladder behaves today. I did take my meds this morning…didn’t I? Should I text mum and ask? The period ends and I find my mum and we spend twenty minutes of my one-hour break taking a leak - I wish the washroom was accessible! At least it’s clean today, though - and then she gives me my lunch that she brought with her. I eat, socialise with my classmates once they come back from the canteen, and we attend our next class. By the time I reach my car after classes, the only thing I can think of is my bed - I guess this feeling is shared by just about every college student ever. I get home, rest my back muscles which are now stiff and sore from all that sitting, and fall asleep before I even think about it. I wake up, do some of my physio exercises, have coffee, exercise again, then get ready and leave for swimming. Of course, why would I ever hold back once I’m in the water? But am I overdoing this? How sore is my body going to be by the end of this? Oh, well. We’ll see. I go home, have dinner, wrap up for the day and prepare for the next one, and go to bed by 10:30 at most - way earlier than I used to just a week ago - because I’m just so tired. Am I old already? Will I be fresh and energetic enough tomorrow to last the entire day? I wake up and find out - yes, just fresh enough….I think.

Maybe the rest of my college life won’t be too bad. Hectic, sure, but not too bad. They’re thinking of taking my classes on the ground floor now. They had to go from “Maybe we’ll install a lift” to “A ramp could work instead” and ended up never being able to change anything after all, no matter how many times they tried. At least now my mother’s knees won’t get tortured so much. If this works out, of course. Anyway, ground floor classes. I’ll be close to the canteen now. Maybe I’ll get a cup of coffee from there every now and then. Maybe that’ll help me calm down as I contemplate everything that’s wrong in the infrastructure of every building I’ve ever been to. Maybe that’ll make me angry yet keep me just composed enough, and that’ll be my Disney villain origin story.