When did I decide to be melancholy? Maybe on the day I finished secondary school. It was evening and we left singing “‘Bye school, ‘bye school, ‘bye-bye”. I realized that I was about to pass through the threshold as a student for the last time.

I looked down, slowed my pace and went on staring hard at the dividing line between the five years of the past and an uncertain future.

I was excited but also making an effort to be excited. And thus I entered the age of nostalgia. 

Copyright David Mibashan. Translated by Kit Maude.