I am scared of being 25

I have always thought about the future, and yet, I can’t come to grips with growing older. Saying that I’m 21 feels odd, weird, and unnatural because just the blink of an eye ago — I was 16 and full of angst and Bukowski poetry. I didn’t imagine myself as who I am now. Honestly, I didn’t even think i’d make it to the day I was 21 years old. I had no hopes, no dreams, and absolutely no vision about what I wanted to do. At best, I could muster up the thought of being a writer, that’s it. I thought I would be an isolated broke writer roaming around the streets of Delhi with barely any money to make rent. I thought I’d be a social pariah with nothing to offer to the world in terms of capitalistic impact.

Skip to now, I am the exact opposite. All I have to offer to the world is capitalistic impact. I don’t make art anymore, I don’t change lives, I don’t know how to protect my personal space, I don’t even know how to take care of my own finances. I’ve lowkey been whining about every important aspect of my life. I don’t think that I give linear and serious thought to — anything, really. I am scared of change. I don’t know if I have any control over how my life is flowing, and how it’s impacting other people. Which is why, the thought of being older is ghastly. It’s inhumane. Unwarranted. I wish I could stay at this age forever, at least until I have it figured out.

I don’t know if my life’s trajectory so far has been something I’d call good or bad. It has a mix of both and I don’t know if there’s a dominant one? Every good thing has resulted in a sacrifice or a bad thing. Every bad thing in turn has had a nice silver lining in the form of a lesson or a learning. Even my faulty relationships. Both of them have taught me about how I’m not ready to date, yet. At least not until I work on myself. And they’ve given me a lot of cherish-able memories that I’ll carry with me for the rest of my life.

The air around being 25

I’ve always been of the opinion that who you are at 25 defines who you will be for the years to come. I know it’s not true and that people change, grow, and everything. But being 25 means that I’m done with at least a third of my life. Will I have anything to show for it? Will I be proud of who I will become? Or will I look back on irreparable mistakes? Will I be a lonely, desolate, pretentious creature that no one likes hanging out with? I have no clue. But that’s how I envision it, at least. I don’t know if I’ll ever truly improve as a human being.

But at the same time

I know I will have gotten a better hang of this adulting thing at the end of it. I definitely like to think I would have traveled to more places and met more amazing, brilliant people. I like to think that I might have gotten a handle on my physical fitness till then, and maybe repaired my relationship with my parents, to some extent. At least to the extent that it stops me from repeating negative behavior. I don’t know if a lot of it will come true. I don’t know if any of it will. But it’s good to acknowledge it, and maybe start looking at things from a constructive angle rather than a destructive one.

And maybe,

Being 25 may not be that big of a deal in the first place. I hope i dont turn into one of those rigid 25 year olds who is set in their ways and becomes radically lopsided in his opinions as I grow older. I hope I keep the same open mindedness and the willingness to look foolish in public. I think, at the end of it, that’s all that really matters.