The countdown has made me absurd in a very specific way; the way only endings can. I notice things now with the seriousness of a man preparing evidence. The flickering light in the lift, the one everyone learned to walk past without complaint. The clock on my desk that always ran five minutes fast, quietly teaching me anxiety before it was fashionable. Even the Gantt charts; those stern, colour-coded judges of our worth; seem to droop on the screen. I swear they’re crying. Bars stretching endlessly, milestones losing their arrogance, float disappearing not due to delays, but resignation. As if the charts know: this plan does not include you anymore.
They have seen me at my most dishonest and my most hopeful.
Yes, we can still recover this.
No, this won’t impact the key date.
Give me one more week.
They’ve watched me argue with time like it was a negotiable clause. Now they sit there silently, accusing nothing, forgiving everything.
I walk differently these days. Slower; not because I finally have time, but because I don’t. I halt before stepping into the building, every morning, as if there’s a ritual I forgot to perform all these years. The lift doors open the same way they always have, but I enter like a guest now. I take in the smell; dust, coffee, overworked air-conditioning. I want my body to remember this place when my mind inevitably edits it down to a highlight reel.
From a distance, I look at my desk the way you look at a pet sleeping. Not wanting to wake it. Not wanting to interrupt the illusion that this is forever. The chair that creaks when I lean back, the drawer that never closes without persuasion, the coffee mug that has outlived several project teams and one version of myself. The money plant; wilting, stubborn, symbolic without trying; stands there like a quiet rebuke. We survived neglect together.
The routine, once mechanical, has turned intimate. Logging in feels ceremonial. Opening emails feels like leafing through old letters that never said anything important but still mattered. I read subject lines slowly. I let meetings overrun. I don’t rush to escape corridors anymore. I linger near doorways, listening to conversations I’ve heard for years, suddenly afraid I might miss the last time someone says my name casually, without ceremony.
Even the road to office has softened. Not the romantic kind; the real one. The honking that insults your ancestors. The two-wheeler that cuts in with confidence born of chaos. The signal that never turns green when you need it to. I savour all of it now. Because there’s a clock running on everything. The irritation has lost its edge. This, too, is ending. And endings have a way of forgiving even the worst behaviour.
What unsettles me most is not the sadness; it’s the tenderness. I’ve spent years training myself to be efficient, detached, professionally armoured. Feelings slow you down. Deadlines don’t wait. Somewhere along the way, I mistook numbness for maturity. And now, in these last days, something has cracked open.
I’m sentimental about stationery.
I’m loyal to a printer that jams only when it matters.
I feel gratitude toward a building that took my best years and returned them quietly, without applause.
And then it hits me; the best thing about this ending is not closure, not growth, not even the next chapter. It’s recognition.
I recognise myself again.
The boy who cried during movies and didn’t pretend it was the background score.
The one who closed Ravinder Singh’s “I Too Had a Love Story” and stared at the ceiling, wounded by sentences. The one who felt things early, deeply, inconveniently.
It feels good to be crying again.
It feels good to miss small, stupid, replaceable things.
It feels good to be that guy again.
Maybe growing up didn’t mean hardening after all. Maybe it just meant forgetting how to count down. And now that I am; three days left; I remember. Every step. Every turn. Every last, ordinary miracle.
And if even the Gantt charts are allowed to cry,
then so am I.
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