Quarter life revelations?

Actually, it’s not even quarter life since not all of us live to a 100, right? Anyway, a friend once told me ‘When you inch closer to 25, you start getting philosophical about life.’ At that time, I pretty much pooh-paahed him but now, I am beginning to wonder there is an element of truth to this. For the first time, I find myself thinking I don’t want to grow up. Ha, some wish that! Now is when the effervescent advice about age being a number and living life to the fullest kicks in. Face it, you and I both know that doesn’t always work. As much as you find yourself kicking yourself back to the familiarity of the past, you are pushing yourself forward in more ways than one. You’re constantly thinking of getting ahead at work, you want to trounce that colleague at a story and get a front-page byline more often than you’d like, you actually find yourself warming up to the idea of living with a boy… for life! You begin to think of things like fixed deposits, insurance premiums and car loans. Sigh.. When did we grow up so quickly?

Let me burst that little bubble… It wasn’t so quickly, was it? I don’t know about others, but throughout school and college, I would look at my older sister achingly and wonder when I would get to do ‘grown up things’ like drive a car, use a credit card, make important ‘work calls’ and go home late heaving a laptop bag full of papers. Well, the universe conspired and gave me all this, but I find myself aching for the long gone….

As I ponder all this on a Saturday night (instead of living it up in a nightclub somewhere.. isn’t that what twenty-somethings do, anyway?) I find myself unnervingly comfortable with the notion that life has been kind to me so far, and now is when the shit gets real. Be it handling a crappy job with a retarded boss, a cranky boyfriend, friends who grow distant over time or even the exasperating traffic, it’s all on you. Only you. Over time, you realize you are miles ahead of several counterparts and instead of feeling dizzylingly ecstatic, you only feel terrified. Unsure. Scared. Yep, all that and then some. Somewhere along the way, you begin to empathize with mothers and fathers all over the world. You know you have the onus of responsibility on you, responsibility for yourself, and the consequences that come with it. If you screw something up, you are accountable. This is the independence we all want, crave and yearn for all through our growing up years. When we are handed that on a platter, it definitely makes you falter and stumble a little. You wonder how people did this? That’s when an epiphany strikes. If XYZ could do it, why can’t I? And that’s how you get a move on… 

Sometimes, you need to take a step back and look at everything in the most distended manner possible. The alarming reality that you’re only a small part of a bigger plan dawns on you, which is when you can smile, ease out those clenched muscles, embrace life and walk on…