Growing up

In a few months, I will be turning 27 and I wonder almost everything about this age of transition from young to adult. The concept of growing up is still an enigma to me in many senses. There are some situations, where I really don’t want to grow up, for example my hopeless romanticism ;). I recently had a long distance crush on someone and I was stupidly so not ready to let go. But, then I grew up a bit ;). One of my friend had shared a status on Facebook when he turned 25, mentioning how we are not cool ones anymore to hang out with our college going friends; how we are not so grown up to even hang out with matured family oriented friends of ours; how our neighbors and distant relatives just see us as a potential groom for some distantly known girl they know of; blah, blah, blah. In all senses it conveyed a nuance of messiness in this age of transition I am going through and I kind of feel, well not a lot but, a pinch of it, too. There are times when I could feel a conflict between dying adolescence and a domineering maturity, be it about making a relationship decision or a career related decision, egotistically saying not to become irrational and stupid. There are times when I could feel I wish I had not grown up. Strangely enough, the ambitious one in me has grown up into a more complacent one, a more compromising one. The journey of growing up has taught me so much more and most importantly I have learned to choose what I want to become. We all go through this, I believe. We learn to hide things from close family members, we learn to make new friends, to come out of a bad break up, and we learn to make ways for our once closest friends to leave from our lives. Life keeps on surprising us every now and then, and yet, we feel that we understand life better. Yet, we love the life more, not only because what we are left with in our lives, but more because of the journey we have just been through. It brings out so many promises, promises of what else could come further down this journey, who else we could meet there and how would we change ourselves, for better or worse. None of us knows. And, that makes it more exciting. Yes, I agree we all miss our carefree childhood, but it’s these promises which keep us going. Yes, we do want to look back, once in a while, and it makes us nostalgic, and I especially try to gather up strength from that to shrug off that nostalgia, stand up and walk again. We grow up.