From Heartbreak to Hiking: My Journey After Graduation

Assalamualaikum wbt.

Hi!

I didn’t plan for “tomorrow” to be almost a year later, lol. Last year, I was dealing with so many life changes. That’s why I decided to start writing again. I won’t say it was the worst year — because honestly, I’ve experienced even more pain, nights of crying my eyes out. But it was definitely an uncertain period of my life. I’ll write about it as time allows.

Rewinding Back: November 2015

In my last post, I stopped at when my mom passed away — November 2015. At that time, I was in the middle of my final year project. Alhamdulillah, everything went well in the end. I had a very supportive supervisor and amazing friends who helped me a lot during that difficult time. We shared the same supervisor, used similar data, but researched from different angles. It was actually quite interesting.

My final year presentation was a success. I remember not wanting to attend the graduation dinner, but my friend insisted. So, I went in basic attire (story of my life, I never feel confident dressing up for events).

During my degree years, I had a huge crush on a guy in my batch. We never shared a class until final year, and I’d secretly admired him since my first year, second semester. My close friends knew about it and teased me often. Looking back, I never had the courage to get close to him — I just liked having a crush. It even motivated me to study harder, because he loved going to the library, and I didn’t want to be lazy. Call it silly, maybe even stalker-ish (haha), but that was the extent of it.

When we finally ended up in the same class and project group, I was over the moon. Even the smallest discussions made me happy.

At the graduation dinner, my friend asked me to take a photo with him. I said no, but she went ahead and called him over. He agreed, and yes — I have a photo with him! But by then, my crush was already fading as our studies came to an end.

The next time I saw him was six months later, at convocation. My niece and sister, who had heard me talk about how good-looking he was, finally saw him in person. They agreed with me (haha). He even texted me that day, but I missed it. Later, he asked me out for a movie. By then, we were both already working. Maybe I’ll write more about that later, but for now — he was simply an important memory from my university years.

Life After Graduation

After my studies, I returned to my hometown briefly, then stayed with my sister while job hunting. My original plan was to work near home, but things didn’t go that way. I joined a program to get a license as a Green Book Holder through my university. Since I had interned with an environmental engineering company, I thought this was a good path. The program lasted about 20 days — and they fed us six meals a day! I ended up gaining 5kg (crazy, I know).

This period was a turning point. I started hiking for the first time, met new people, and grew close to some classmates. Around the same time, I became interested in someone else — a classmate I hadn’t noticed much before. I don’t want to go into all the details now, but he eventually broke my heart.

We ended up working at the same company (different divisions, thankfully). It was hard to move on because I saw him often. It wasn’t just a crush this time — I fell deeply. And when I found out he had gone back to his ex, it crushed me. I lost 5kg from the heartbreak, slipping back into being underweight. On top of that, I struggled with imposter syndrome at work. Workplace bias didn’t help either. I stayed for a year before moving on, but thankfully I made good friends there that I still keep in touch with today.

Finding Hiking and a New Circle

During this time, I started hiking more seriously, thanks to a childhood friend who tricked me into climbing one of the 7 highest peaks in Peninsular Malaysia for my very first hike. I couldn’t walk properly after that (haha), but it was such a memorable experience.

Through hiking, I met many new people, built close friendships, and found joy again. My old Instagram was full of hiking memories from my late 20s. Some of those stories will come up again later because they shaped me a lot — and yes, some friendships also led to heartbreak.

I’ll continue next!