The Bachelor of Economics and Social Studies: Douglas Hurd

I am a graduate. I'd like to write this one in my lilting tone and typically overwrought fashion, but I find that I can't. When you met me, I was nostalgic. That is not to say that my nostalgia is gone, I will probably always be nostalgic, but all that I feared has come to pass. I have no real plans right now. Everything seems smoky and intangible. I can see the future. I can see my future, but it's a vapour. It seems that if I should dare reach for it, it will disappear. I imagine that if I reached out and grasped it, I would ruin it.

They say that when we're approaching our dreams, or when we're about to reach for them, our hearts are constantly aflutter. They say that our hearts are unwilling because, they fear that the failure to grasp that intangible wisp of smoke that the dream currently is, will break them. My heart has every reason to fear, for even among hearts it is weak. If I were to reach for my dream; something that's so close I could almost taste it and fail, I fear that I shall be irrevocably broken. Even more so than I am now. For this purpose my heart continues to deceive me. It will present options of pain to me because it doesn't mind bleeding slowly till it becomes a withered husk of a thing. That's a thousand times more preferable than exhausting itself in one moment. My heart will rather suffer than risk true happiness. I think that this is especially sad, for both options are equally damning.

As things stand now, I don't have a job, I don't have that studio in London and I don't have those working friends with whom I paint the town red every Friday night. My West Yorkshire Highland Terrier is at least a couple of years away. But all of this is okay. It's okay for me to wait for this smashed up heart of mine to get stronger. It's okay for me to stare at the mirage in front of me. I will stare at it for as long as I can. I will stare at it until I figure out how to get there. Then one day, I don't know how, but I know I shall.

Happy Days,
Afam.