I have always had a hyperactive imagination; as a child, I envisioned a Jetsons-like future with flying cars, vitamin pills for meals and robotic housekeepers who could do everything with a mere wave of their metallic appendages (picture a domesticated R2D2). I used to imagine how I would feel as a twenty year old, how adult that would be! It seemed like something so distant, such an impossible speck in the horizon that it was almost hypothetical, almost unreal.
Twenty came and went, and I have a vivid memory of my twentieth birthday- sitting alone in my college hostel room at midnight, wondering if this was it. It barely seemed as powerful, as glamorous, as fantastic as I had convinced myself over the years it would be. So after that, I suppose a part of my imagination faded away into a haze of grey, grown-up reality.
Age clearly didn't do much to add or subtract anything from your life unless you had so planned for it to happen. Life is about choices, opportunities, and sometimes a serendipitous twist of fate that gets you to exactly where you belong, I realized.
Looking back at my twenties, I can say that they were happy, colourful, exciting and exactly what I needed them to be. They taught me all the right lessons at the most opportune times, and landed me to my thirtieth birthday which came and went like a happy blur a few days ago.
They say your thirties bring you clarity, confidence and a calmness that is fueled by self-awareness and a wholesome understanding of the world and its myriad ways. Today, I feel like I have lived enough to know what's good for me, and am young enough to have the zeal to actually work towards getting it. It's a merry combination of youth and wisdom; a comfortable plateau of a certain type of peace that has come with time- seamlessly worked its way into how I conduct myself in my relationships with those around me.
This was my first birthday as a mother, and perhaps that has been the reason why it has felt like the most special one I've had thus far. It has also made me so acutely aware of how rapidly time has flown and how life has zoomed past as I stood watching from the sides.
I've had an amazing life so far and have had little to complain about (knock on wood, please!). But perhaps if I had to nitpick, I'd say that the one thing I wish to be able to do more of in this shiny new decade would be to write. No impostor syndrome, no abandoning projects halfway through, no distractions. All my self-analysis over the years has pointed at one thing and one thing alone- this is what I'm good at, and this is what I'm happiest doing. It isn't a hobby, as some might suggest; I find that an offensive, frivolous term to associate with what I'm so dearly fond of doing. It seems more like an involuntary act to me, like blinking or breathing or loving your child. It is far too personal to me and has been so since I first learnt to write at the age of five. The past year saw a much laxer version of me as a writer because I was mentally, physically and emotionally too busy being a giant pregnant whale (read as 23 extra kilos) and then raising a baby! I hope to change that this year, although I suppose I'm going to need a lot of good luck (and noise-cancelling headphones) for that considering how we now have a naughty little toddler in our midst.
So I guess it's not really much of a big deal that the future is less like a Jetsons episode and more like a dystopian nightmare with climate change and air-filters in your bedrooms. This lifetime is what we've been given, and what we make of it is in our hands alone. It's not about how long you live, but about the legacy you leave behind you, the number of hearts that beat for you and the lives you end up touching.
I have great dreams for myself and I hope that I get to fulfill them one at a time.
Like Ruskin Bond said, it isn't time that's passing by, it's you and I.
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