Life after 30

It’s true what they say – Age is just a number. The days I feel like life is drowning me in meaningless and unnecessary complications, this 32 year old has a long chat with a 21 year old and realizes she can relate more to her/him (or maybe just reminisce about the simple times, that didn’t seem so simple back in the day!) than to a much-closer 35 year-old.

I wish I had unrestricted access to the young ‘uns (eeee that sounded so paedophilic), but unfortunately, I have to deal with the 30+, and more and more the 60+ on a daily basis.

I wish I could plug my ears with my index fingers, lock myself in a room with loud music and block everything out like I did when I was 14, but alas! That’s a luxury I no longer have. When the entire world around me is throwing tantrums, I can’t be the one adding to the pollution.

Even till about 4 years ago, my only concern was me. *My* heart is broken, *I* need the best job, *I* deserve a great partner and brilliant sex. *I* must make a ton of money and spend it. Now, I find myself thinking about others more than pondering over my own life. And no, this is not me being magnanimous. This is just my mind being cluttered and unorganized. So much for my management education! It may even be partly an effect of getting married and doubling the number of people in my life (this is not me bitching out marriage btw).

And when I do think of myself, it’s almost never about striving towards happiness. When you find me deep in thought, I’m probably thinking about going to a gynaec and a dermat, filing my tax returns (which is what I came to do here at Starbucks at 8 in the morning and I’m writing a blog post instead), being sad about my body and thinking how I need to slim down at least 1 kg before I go for my long-awaited vacation, being pissed at my parents or in-laws, being pissed at my husband for no reason, being pissed at my cook, worried that I might be getting migraine like my mom, worried that I might get diabetes in the future like my mom, worrying that I’ll become a shit person like my father, worrying that my biological clock is ticking and the motherhood hormones haven’t kicked in, being worried that I haven’t taken my cats for their vaccination and questioning whether I love them at all (I’ve turned into a mother after all!). This is somewhat low season in my new career (I have such mixed-feelings about the monsoons now), and I’m spending more time at home these days, worried, irritated, snapping at everyone. I’ve quit singing for good I think, I’ve quit writing. You will not believe how incredibly sad I am at the last two. Seriously, I’m losing my mind! I almost don’t even recognize myself anymore. And that alone is a blog post for another day.

Now everything I do or say has repercussions. The secrets of my friends are no longer on the lines of ‘a crush on that boy’, but more ‘I’m cheating on my wife’, so I need to weigh my words when advising, and absolutely sealing my mouth shut when talking to common friends. When advising, being absolutely unequivocal or completely ambiguous, depending on how much you care about being responsible for a decision taken by another. Calling up vendors who owe me a shit ton of money and trying to maintain a balance between being nice and being harsh. Friends, family, are all of a sudden in failed marriages, failed businesses, failed jobs, failed job-applications, buried in loans, losing loved ones to eventual mortality, and you’ve to understand their grief without ever having been a participant in it. And even when you're not living it, you end up carrying a piece of it with you anyway.

I cannot take on one more friend, one more family member, one more of me. There are days I feel frozen in my place, just staring outside the window, wondering where to begin. If I stop caring, will their problems get solved? How long do I have to be there as a shoulder? Is there someone worrying about my problems? But wait, are my problems as big as theirs? Am I taking my life lightly? Am I taking it too seriously? How did I have more clarity 10 years ago than I do now? Can I please, for one day, not have to care about the ones I love? Because sometimes, I’m not even sure I really love anyone at all.

A few years ago, I purposely disconnected from a close friend of mine. It seemed she consistently created drama in her life, and always called to offload and ask for advice that she never took. I noticed that she almost never asked me how *I* was doing. And I’m not a patient person by any measure but I’m not trying to use that as an excuse. *Now* she is going through some actual shit and I know I should reach out, but I have zero inclination. To add to the guilt, my other friends keep asking me why I’m not there for her. These are the same friends who used to ask me back in the day how I tolerated her! Who all do I need to be answerable to? Sometimes I shock myself with my indifference. 

As I age, so does everyone around me – getting loaded with their unique set of issues. As they offload on me, I offload on you, dear reader. The wrinkles on my face are now more frown lines than smile lines. They’re not proof of the richness of my life, but the frustrations of the daily. And there’s no FIFO (once an engineer, always an engineer) happening with the problems either. The pile is growing and I’ve to be selective of the stresses I take on my fragile little brain. I’m the person who couldn’t even handle the pressures of the corporate rigmarole, and EVERYBODY does it. I need to know if I’ll ever be capable of and be responsible enough for other human beings.

Kids, enjoy that Post Graduation abroad, your boyfriend dumping you, being the office minion, high metabolism, hangovers, a head full of thick hair, skin glowing like the full moon, body like gravity never touched you and everyone around you with their frothy problems.

And elders, could I live in oblivion a little longer? Yes you. You who is laughing at me from a distance with a “You think *this* is difficult? Wait till you turn 40!”. Maybe one day I will laugh at the 32 year-old me. Maybe 42 won’t be as difficult because I’d have developed a much thicker skin by then! And maybe I’ll understand why 62 isn’t ‘senility’…but just the new normal.

Maybe age is not just a number, it's a proportion. Or a variable depending on how you're feeling in that moment.

MY GOD, my vacation can’t come any sooner. :)