The Bus Ride That Brought Me Back
Written By: Ritika Sharma
Thumbnail and Banner Photo by: Mahshid Farokhnejad
The first month of university is not gentle.
It rushes in like a storm — syllabi to memorize, assignments to begin, friendships to forge, endless names to recall. You are expected to learn, adapt, socialize, and somehow make it all look effortless. Between crowded hallways, Welcome Week events, and the constant fear of falling behind, I forgot something as simple as breathing.
One afternoon, when I was buried under pages I couldn’t even absorb, my friend stopped me. She looked at me, half laughing, half scolding, and said:
“Girl, we’re in such a beautiful place, and you’re still living like it’s jail.”
Her words struck me harder than I thought they would. She was right. I had been moving like a prisoner—from lecture halls to my pale, undecorated residence room—treating this new life as an ordeal to endure rather than an experience to live.
Then she did something that felt almost comical. She pointed to an exit, just behind our residence building—one I had never noticed before. Freedom had been sitting there all along, hidden in plain sight. We laughed at the absurdity of it, but instead of turning back, we kept walking.
Fifteen minutes later, we stepped off a bus and into Point Pleasant Park.
A Walk That Became a Mirror
That walk was more than a walk—it was a series of quiet awakenings.
The first came as we passed a house with its curtains drawn open. Inside was a girl’s room glowing with golden light: pink curtains, plush toys, and twinkling lamps. It felt like a space built for dreams. And I thought of my own room, bare and colorless, stripped of warmth. When did I stop filling my spaces with life? When did the child who once decorated every corner fade into someone who simply accepts pale walls?
A few steps later, the street greeted us with cheerful Halloween displays—skeletons and pumpkins laughing in the sunlight, even though October was weeks away. What struck me most wasn’t the decorations themselves, but the hands that placed them — not children, but adults. Adults who still believed in play, who kept joy alive on their front lawns. I realized then that growing up doesn’t mean abandoning magic. It means carrying forward the pieces you choose to protect.
Further along, the houses grew grander, each one lined up as if promising a future we could almost touch. My friend and I caught ourselves whispering the same dream: one day, a home like this. It felt far away, maybe impossibly so, and yet that longing sparked something — a reminder that even in our exhaustion, we’re already on the path toward it. The first step is always the hardest, but it’s still a step.
And then, as if the city had given us enough reflections for one afternoon, nature spoke too. Deer slipped between trees, seagulls circled overhead, and the ocean unfolded in endless blue. We climbed cliffs and sat in silence, watching the waves fold in on themselves. There was nothing left to say. The water carried the words for us — a reminder of how far we’ve come, and how much more beauty is still waiting.
It was bittersweet: a walk that reminded me not only of where I was, but of everything I had forgotten to notice.
Life in a Vivid Filter
As we wandered deeper into the park, the world seemed to change around us. It was as though someone had quietly adjusted the settings of reality, turning the dull into vivid.
Children ran across the trails, their laughter light and boundless. Dogs bounded after frisbees with joy so pure it felt contagious. Sunlight fell through the leaves like liquid gold. Every path curved into something unexpected — a hidden bench carved with initials, a tree that seemed to have watched centuries pass, a clearing where the wind smelled of salt and pine.
For the first time in weeks, life surged back into me. Suddenly, everything was alive—every sound sharper, every color brighter.
It felt like being handed back the eyes of my five-year-old self—the version of me that believed the world was radiant, endless, and full of hidden treasures. Somewhere along the way, deadlines and responsibilities had dulled that vision. But here, just fifteen minutes from campus, the color returned.
We wandered down random trails that seemed to appear out of nowhere, each one leading to some new discovery. A quiet bench overlooking the sea. A patch of wildflowers fighting their way through stone. A tree so massive it seemed to hold the sky in its branches. Everything felt cinematic, as if life had been placed under a vivid filter I hadn’t used in years.
And I realized something simple yet profound: the world had not lost its color. I had. The stress, the constant rush, the obsession with keeping up — they had dimmed my ability to see. The brightness was always there, waiting. It only needed my attention.
The Friend Who Pulled Me Out
Perhaps the most important part of this story is not the park itself, or the houses, or even the ocean. It’s the friend who pulled me out of my tunnel vision long enough to notice any of it.
We don’t often talk about how essential it is to have people like that — people who remind you that life is larger than your to-do list. A friend who doesn’t let you sink into the monotony of pale walls and endless pages, but nudges you toward light, toward laughter, toward places where air feels fresh again.
Without her, I might still be in my room, drowning in deadlines and calling it productivity. Instead, she showed me an exit I had never seen, and she walked beside me into color. Sometimes, what saves you isn’t a park, the ocean, or sunlight. Sometimes, it’s simply a friend who says, “Come with me,” and means it.
And in that moment, I understood: peace is not something we always find alone. Sometimes, it arrives through the kindness of another — someone who insists you deserve to see the world with open eyes.
The Lesson in the Pause
That day was not about running away from work. It wasn’t procrastination — it was recovery.
Procrastination is avoidance. Rest is a return. The difference is intention.
When we pause with purpose, we give ourselves a chance to breathe, to notice, to remember that life is more than checklists and due dates.
University teaches us to chase faster, harder, and higher. Life whispers something else: sometimes the bravest choice is to stop.
Sometimes, you can’t make that choice alone. Sometimes it takes a friend — someone who sees you drowning in the pale routines of your own making and reminds you there’s more.
That bus ride to Point Pleasant Park showed me that peace is not far away. It can be as close as laughter with a friend, a hidden trail, or a moment of silence by the ocean.
Taking that break didn’t weaken me. It returned me to myself.
It reminded me that life, even when it feels heavy and colorless, is still radiant. Still worth pausing for.
Sometimes, all it takes to see the beauty again is fifteen minutes — and a friend who loves you enough to remind you how.