Turning Twenty-Something

I am soon reaching the first quarter of my life. It sounded beautiful when I was fifteen. To be in the twenties. To be the woman I have never dreamed of becoming when the bob cut lived and dirty pants from the evening out relished the present. I never saw it coming. Never. Not this.

   It's beautiful, to be able to say that you are now a woman in a little more of a true sense than from the words that ring in your ears when people say it around after you have your first period. Well, to hell with them. This started out as a post to see where I am heading with this whole quarter life crisis, to analyze and see if there is any hope's ray hiding amidst the bushes, to wonder which other university will be ready to accept me after another year of undergraduate studies or if I should start working; you know- like trying the whole 'responsibility' thing. To give back something to my parents instead of taking from them all the time.
 
     An unplugged stream of thoughts flip around in my head. About this period full of magical twenties. It's tough. It's tough because I have no idea where I am heading to. I imagined that I would be globe-trotting by now, making new friends and getting drunk in an Irish pub. Wild dreams and could-be-made-possible dreams aside, I just want to share some of the best times in my life which happened when this number called 20 hit me a year or two back.

        Several things. The taste of knowing how it feels like to be in college. I most certainly did expect it to turn out differently and I completely blame the movies and all my books for it, not to mention my own imagination. This was an experience in itself. The day, that moment my sister got married and when I cried because I didn't know what else to do. To send her off to another home and for her to start her own life at her own accord. To feel in-charge of family.

Source: Google images 

  To fall in a possible whimsical version of love. Revelations all the way. As Scott Fitzgerald would say : ' I wasn't actually in love but I felt a sort of tender curiosity'. The many number of boys who might have struck my senses hard for just a minuscule side of them that was blown out of proportions in my mind. The way a strong rock spreads into dust after a blast, I had words escaping from within. I just had to put it down. Somewhere. Anywhere. In scraps of paper, tissues, my several diaries, the less-personal ones on this blog that you read. And once that strikes, you'll never be out of words. Twenty lent me more  mature writing. Or should I say this tender curiosity alerted my senses?

 
Growing up saw my elder brother confiding in me and treating me as an equal alongside the little sister look. I saw a change in the way he conversed, the way my sister told me about her happenings, the joy trip that I took with my cousins.. Just seeing that stroke of acknowledgement that you are old enough to understand what they say.. that's amazing. The way I look at my own cousins with a smile and understand what they're going through because I've been there and done that. To feel proud that your baby brother is growing up in the world's eyes, yet an immature kid in my own is all that you can perceive. Well, I don't know how to exactly classify this. Should I feel sad that I am growing up in numbers or gape at the progress in thoughts : emotionally, spiritually and befitting the age; passing on what I know to the other smaller ones.
 
   Twenty later told me it's okay to watch adult movies, it's okay to laugh over such jokes because you are an adult. Authorized to know. It sounds dumb, but I have always appreciated the way technological and other information reached me at the right age. It reached me right when it should have and when such an exposure would have made a difference and dwelled within. To just go through your own old books and realize how silly you were. To learn to remember that we enjoyed playing in the mud and making sandcastles. It's beautiful.

  There is a voice. There are people to listen to. My niece looks at me like I am from the outer space when I play with her. She's the first baby I have carried before the head would stay stable. To see the way her entire hand can't encircle even my little finger and her gibberish sounds- it's beautiful. To feel like a mini-mother, (Oh, not the complete one) to hold something so tiny in your hands and weep out of joy.. that's when I feel it's okay to grow up; when that little bundle of joy looks at you with big brown eyes and kicking your chest.

  For all this, being in this whole growing-up phase is lovely.

  But every other way, you're screwed. Pray your soul doesn't roast like the souls in hell.

Source : Google images: http://www.flickr.com/photos/thegoodtribe/4470200634/