Each time I've gone over to Quinn's house, his five year old sister, Jillian, welcomes me right at the door. She presents her Barbie dolls or latest outfits to me. She recounts what she made in school, which friends she chose to spend time with, and wants to know if I would like to play with her, too? No matter what, she is always genuinely interested to see what I am up to the entire time I am there.
Quinn apologizes each time: "She never comes to my room when it's just us at home-- it's only when you're around that she's like this."
For a minute it seems like I completely understand what's going through her head. Then I realize that I don't have an actual answer to the question that is being implied. The exact mix of curiosity, admiration, and envy that girls her age often have for girls in their late teens is very easy for me to remember, but almost impossible to explain. I can very closely relate to the feelings that she experiences, but I couldn't tell you why she, or I, ever felt that way. What makes teenage girls so worthy of the unpretentious respect that only a young child can give?
I'm not really sure of the answer to that, but my six year old self did. I had my whole life planned out. I was going to fall in love at 16 or 17, get all A's forever, and get married at 22. And after that, I thought I'd figure it out.
Nope. Nope nope nope.
Anyway, a few weeks ago, I turned 20. When I woke up the morning of my birthday, I couldn't help but quickly calculate how much of my life I had left. About 75% to 80%, I figured (god willing), which seems unfathomably long to me.
Usually on my birthdays in previous years, I've found it hard to accept that I was as old as I was. Like I had to pause for a while last year before telling people that I was 18 rather than 17, and the year before, 17 rather than 16, and so on and so far back, as long as I could remember. This made birthdays in themselves exciting for me, so I could think about how much older I've gotten.
Not this time, though. I feel 20-- I've felt 20 for a very long time. Now, it feels like my age has fallen behind me and it just so happened to catch up. I assumed that it was because 20 was a nice, round number and somehow easier to process. But there was something more to it.
See, it's not that I just felt physically older. It wasn't merely that I realized one morning that I now actually do prefer Diet Pepsi to Regular, as I had previously sworn to never do (though that realization admittedly did come as a shock).
No, I realized that this sense of fulfillment came from the fact that for such a long time, I didn't have any self-conception of myself beyond my twenties.
So, instead of the anticipation that filled me for the few days following my birthday, each morning I couldn't help but wish that time was running backwards instead. I know that I have matured and have probably become a better person over the past few years, but that maturity has come at a price.
The Deepta from a few years ago would have been confident enough to take on whatever is bound to come to me during these next few decisive years, without any fear or anxiety. But now, I know better. That there is no "plan", that there never really was any "plan" over which I had any full control. Whenever I try to envision and dream about what lies ahead for me, it does as much good as trying to invert my eyeballs to see what's behind the back of my skull. I would try to brush these feelings away, and keep them from bothering me, but for a while they kept coming back in hordes, to the point where I stop dead in my tracks and wonder why I was doing what I was doing at that moment, at all.
Of course, most young people have majestic visions of their inadequacy every once in a while, but these had never manifested in such a way for me, to the point where I would question each and every decision.
Only senior citizens who have the time to self-reflect upon many years of experience are supposed to mourn themselves this way. Not robust, bright-eyed, twenty-year olds.
+++
I started writing this the day after my birthday, but couldn't bring myself to actually post until I felt like I had some kind of resolution. Last night though, I was reading a compilation of the personal diaries of one of my favorite writers, Anton Chekhov. Something he said in reference to a particular novel, was eerily relevant to this dilemma. "You are right in demanding that an artist approach his work consciously, but you are confusing two concepts: the solution of a problem and the correct formulation of a problem."
I decided that I'm on my way to achieving the latter, so I finally hit "Publish".
Quinn apologizes each time: "She never comes to my room when it's just us at home-- it's only when you're around that she's like this."
For a minute it seems like I completely understand what's going through her head. Then I realize that I don't have an actual answer to the question that is being implied. The exact mix of curiosity, admiration, and envy that girls her age often have for girls in their late teens is very easy for me to remember, but almost impossible to explain. I can very closely relate to the feelings that she experiences, but I couldn't tell you why she, or I, ever felt that way. What makes teenage girls so worthy of the unpretentious respect that only a young child can give?
I'm not really sure of the answer to that, but my six year old self did. I had my whole life planned out. I was going to fall in love at 16 or 17, get all A's forever, and get married at 22. And after that, I thought I'd figure it out.
Nope. Nope nope nope.
Anyway, a few weeks ago, I turned 20. When I woke up the morning of my birthday, I couldn't help but quickly calculate how much of my life I had left. About 75% to 80%, I figured (god willing), which seems unfathomably long to me.
Usually on my birthdays in previous years, I've found it hard to accept that I was as old as I was. Like I had to pause for a while last year before telling people that I was 18 rather than 17, and the year before, 17 rather than 16, and so on and so far back, as long as I could remember. This made birthdays in themselves exciting for me, so I could think about how much older I've gotten.
Not this time, though. I feel 20-- I've felt 20 for a very long time. Now, it feels like my age has fallen behind me and it just so happened to catch up. I assumed that it was because 20 was a nice, round number and somehow easier to process. But there was something more to it.
See, it's not that I just felt physically older. It wasn't merely that I realized one morning that I now actually do prefer Diet Pepsi to Regular, as I had previously sworn to never do (though that realization admittedly did come as a shock).
No, I realized that this sense of fulfillment came from the fact that for such a long time, I didn't have any self-conception of myself beyond my twenties.
So, instead of the anticipation that filled me for the few days following my birthday, each morning I couldn't help but wish that time was running backwards instead. I know that I have matured and have probably become a better person over the past few years, but that maturity has come at a price.
The Deepta from a few years ago would have been confident enough to take on whatever is bound to come to me during these next few decisive years, without any fear or anxiety. But now, I know better. That there is no "plan", that there never really was any "plan" over which I had any full control. Whenever I try to envision and dream about what lies ahead for me, it does as much good as trying to invert my eyeballs to see what's behind the back of my skull. I would try to brush these feelings away, and keep them from bothering me, but for a while they kept coming back in hordes, to the point where I stop dead in my tracks and wonder why I was doing what I was doing at that moment, at all.
Of course, most young people have majestic visions of their inadequacy every once in a while, but these had never manifested in such a way for me, to the point where I would question each and every decision.
Only senior citizens who have the time to self-reflect upon many years of experience are supposed to mourn themselves this way. Not robust, bright-eyed, twenty-year olds.
+++
I started writing this the day after my birthday, but couldn't bring myself to actually post until I felt like I had some kind of resolution. Last night though, I was reading a compilation of the personal diaries of one of my favorite writers, Anton Chekhov. Something he said in reference to a particular novel, was eerily relevant to this dilemma. "You are right in demanding that an artist approach his work consciously, but you are confusing two concepts: the solution of a problem and the correct formulation of a problem."
I decided that I'm on my way to achieving the latter, so I finally hit "Publish".
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