Maths
The fear of growing up
The moment I stare at papers, all that floods me are memories, moments, feelings that ought to be filled onto it, poured onto it. Not random answers that accompany the script I was given to carry out, the character I was meant to give life to.
And sometimes that’s the cruelty of the world, that expects me to carry out roles and fill papers up with equations that took eternity to solve, and find x while I was still hung up on those fleeting moments when I never wanted to be found.
Maybe each time I solved, each step I took to find x and never truly found it, was meant to serve as a reminder that sometimes things can’t be found no matter how hard you search for them, unless they are willing to come out and show themselves. Maybe that’s how life is, and that’s how people are.
Everyone talks about either the beauty of maths or its difficulty; I belong to the latter. I mean, there was a time when math did feel beautiful, when it was associated with numbers. First, when it added up just like our group of friends; then, when a few left while walking towards the primary gates, we subtracted digits.
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Just to be multiplied by loneliness and divided by differences. Then came the x and y, teachers’ pets. I wonder where the other 24 letters vanished off to.
After mastering the art of being left out, came different angles of thinking. First, sine, like whom I increased to a better person with each angle, I reached bigger goals, only to be plummeted down by cos, reaching rock bottom at my highest.
While tan moved peacefully in between the two, I never knew what to make of it. The dawn and dusk before everything went up the hill or plummeted down.
And in its midst came the intersecting lines, consistent but independent. My transitory hope- who knew when we would meet again. Now we move in parallel, two inconsistent lines fighting to succeed, only to coincide, forming a consistent, dependent bond with each other.
Some days we progressed in consistent forms like Arithmetic Progressions. While the other days were filled with diameters that divided us apart.
And in between the chaos of growing up, came people just as confusing as roots and synthetic division. Never knew what they were until now.
Though I hope you figure life out, while I figure maths out.
