Am I at crossroads or at a threshold? Am I at the crossroads
of settled adult life and youthful ignorance? Or am I at the threshold crossing
over from naïve optimism to real life disillusion or is it wisdom?
Turning 30 is impactful, glorious and of course very
significant for me, not because it’s a fine even number, but an age which I
never thought I shall live to see…I had never planned for life beyond 29 but I
survived childbirth! I never foresaw
myself ever turning 30, never imagined I could ever anchor myself or commit to
a settled life, my innate restlessness reined my thoughts about life beyond the
20’s as they say…the exuberance of youth, the mirth of rootless living and
non-commitment fuelled my desire to live out life as fully as possible before
turning 30. All vices and virtues that meet people through their lifetime, I
had visited them all before I ended my 20’s I even ended up experiencing the
throes of spirituality. Tried solving the rubic of self-identity and
self-existence to no particular end, but rested on the edge of knowledge that I
tried. Tried shunning the “i” never quite clearly managed. The high of self
love did not wane even in the face of becoming a mother, never quite absolved
completely of self love, I have had my own struggles with the existence of
another person in my life, who “according to societal expectation” deserved
selfless love…I have had an uneasy feeling about loving someone completely, in
spite of myself, still do..my identity is shaping up, has its own destined
shape and future, is a belief I would still like to carry on till my next
decade at least..So abandoning the love of shaping the self or not glorifying
it would be akin infidelity for me.
At this age, I am surprised by my rapid drainage of
sensitivity, at my apathy and my shocking inaction towards the on goings around
me. My rapid disbelief in my own dreams and ambitions sometimes shocks me,
sometimes am almost deaf to some of my dying enthusiasm…
If this is coming of age, if this is growing old, if
material collections matter the most, and if all other thinking than that about
your investments is mere intellectual masturbation, I really don’t know if am
aging gracefully enough… The wise are full of doubts, are my doubts strong
enough to make me qualify for wisdom?
At 25 I thought I set out to conquer all things worth
conquering, is now the fire dying out, was it a mere vanity associated with
youth that spoke through me or was it really something more powerful?
Not melding into conventional mindset by a certain age certainly
means peer isolation, with settled job holders, or content housewives clubs
burgeoning around me, I feel a pariah in both these places…turning 30 is more
crushing than enlightening, turning 30 is not really out of the world, with the
average life expectancy climbing steadily world over, what is alarming is, is
someone counting, the average life expectancy of dreams of youth? Or am I the
only one with a fishing line baited with the moon?
I shudder at my questions, I shudder at my naïveté and for
once I do not have a plan for myself for the next decade…do not know if it’s
good bad or just merely nothing..
But yes I have a lot to look behind and cheer myself for, I
have really lived one hell of decade, the last one, skirted in gay abandon,
visited places which I dreamed of and more, paid a price for the vagabond in me
and never live to regret it. Loved people, places, desires, vices and virtues,
experimented with self on a level bordering dangerous but lived to tell the
tale.
Wrapped myself up in silence and talked long enough to bore
people to death. Written so much that I can fill up a cupboard with my
writings, read as much to fill a room with books, to its brim, dressed in so
many myriad ways, people might think I am an undercover spy! Fallen so many
times and rebuilt myself completely but retained my core…
My next decade aspirations have some serious competition
from those of my daughter but am sure I have a lot to learn and look forward
to…it’s good to be in self doubt at times, is what I have understood from the
times I have lived..And it’s also good for the soul to remain restless is what
I have chosen to believe. So as I turn 30 without really dying… I am sure I
shall live it up as I always have! And when I waver I am sure there will be
flowers, coffee, sinfully dark chocolate, smell of monsoons, books and newness
to egg me on!
And of course there shall always course poetry through my
being, and Rilke, Shel and Grace shall always regale and inspire and my
daughter will get their words instead of lullabies forever!
So I guess it won’t really matter much that I finally am
about to enter a realm beyond my imagination, as long as I am dressed in
leather boots, biker jacket and oodles of confidence!
Am still hitching my wagon to the stars or supernovas or the
moon! We’ll see!
Or maybe just writing another blog post with another
perspective another 5 years from now!
