Growing up means seeing yourself change and seeing the people around you change. As I stand on the verge of another milestone (even though age is just a number... its still an important one), I decided to take some time to reflect on how my views on life have changed. Have I grown wiser? Maybe not always. But I have definitely grown in experiences. Here are some things which have a new twist to them:
Love: Remember how the idea of love used to be songs on the radio, coffee dates, skipping tuition classes to meet? Remember the excitement and the madness of it all? Probably the thing that has changed the most is the innocence and fearlessness. When we didn't know the rules and restrictions, we would just plunge headlong into love. Many heartbreaks and many numbing experiences later, we slowly learnt to play by the rules. As we were growing up, the idea of love was also changing. Maybe we didn't notice it at first. But slowly, love became more than butterflies in the stomach. It became stability and the idea that someone can see the worst in you and still wake up next to you everyday. It became a person who would listen to us after a bad day at work and sit on a couch and watch TV with us. Many called it the death of romance but as we grow up, love transforms. Sure there would be days when there are fireworks and roses but after all... fireworks burn out and roses wilt... what remains is love and companionship.
Family: Growing up, most of us take our family for granted. They are always around, we love them, we fight with them and sometimes we think we hate them (remember when your mom wouldn't let you go out with friends). What we don't do is treasure them. We don't do it until the day comes when we are not living with them anymore... because of various reasons like jobs in different cities (even countries), marriage, studies. It suddenly dawns on us how much we miss having them around and how we were used to having them shelter and protect us. We realize it when we come back late from office and no one is waiting with food for us. We realize it when we have to wake up early to cook even though we are tired. We realize when we are about to make big decisions and they are not there to guide us. So spend time with them and tell them how much they mean before its too late.
Love: Remember how the idea of love used to be songs on the radio, coffee dates, skipping tuition classes to meet? Remember the excitement and the madness of it all? Probably the thing that has changed the most is the innocence and fearlessness. When we didn't know the rules and restrictions, we would just plunge headlong into love. Many heartbreaks and many numbing experiences later, we slowly learnt to play by the rules. As we were growing up, the idea of love was also changing. Maybe we didn't notice it at first. But slowly, love became more than butterflies in the stomach. It became stability and the idea that someone can see the worst in you and still wake up next to you everyday. It became a person who would listen to us after a bad day at work and sit on a couch and watch TV with us. Many called it the death of romance but as we grow up, love transforms. Sure there would be days when there are fireworks and roses but after all... fireworks burn out and roses wilt... what remains is love and companionship.
Family: Growing up, most of us take our family for granted. They are always around, we love them, we fight with them and sometimes we think we hate them (remember when your mom wouldn't let you go out with friends). What we don't do is treasure them. We don't do it until the day comes when we are not living with them anymore... because of various reasons like jobs in different cities (even countries), marriage, studies. It suddenly dawns on us how much we miss having them around and how we were used to having them shelter and protect us. We realize it when we come back late from office and no one is waiting with food for us. We realize it when we have to wake up early to cook even though we are tired. We realize when we are about to make big decisions and they are not there to guide us. So spend time with them and tell them how much they mean before its too late.
Friendships: The days when friendship bands and Katti were all we needed to prove our friendship is indeed in the past. Gone are the days when we could meet everyday at school or hang out together for hours. Gone are the days when we would make new friends everyday and promise to stay friends forever. Now we have to sustain friendships over the Internet. Friends move away... sometimes we lose touch no matter how hard we try to hold on and sometimes we vow to meet up but never get the time. It is definitely not easy. Sustaining a friendship takes effort and as we grow older, we realize the value of friends and more importantly, we realize which are the friendships worth sustaining. Sometimes they may be miles away, on different continents but as life gets busier, we understand the need to put more effort into the friends we want to keep. So take the time, pick up your phone and call your friends or if you are lucky enough to have them near, go out and meet them!
Loss: Just as we gain so much growing up, when we look back we see a lot that we have lost. We have lost people we loved, we have lost relationships and we have lost time. Losing people we love is the most difficult thing to accept and deal with. As we grow older, we start to understand the idea of death and loss and start to form coping mechanisms to move on. That also means we start to appreciate the people we love more. We start to let go of people who don't matter and even though it hurts us, we understand that some relationships have to be ended. It is said that you'll never be younger than what you are today. When we start to understand that, we start to appreciate the value of time and how important it is to spend it in the right way and on the right people.
The thing about growing up is that most of the time we wish we were back in the age of innocence. Well that is in the past and all we can do is live in the present and not worry too much about the future. Here's to growing up!
The thing about growing up is that most of the time we wish we were back in the age of innocence. Well that is in the past and all we can do is live in the present and not worry too much about the future. Here's to growing up!
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