I remember cheerful birthdays with sweets for friends, games, and gifts. Each age was like a level-up punctuated with the sound of Mario grabbing a coin. As the number went up, you unlocked more. Freedoms, understanding, more of your own capacity, skills, and trust. Age was a friend, everyone did keep saying I ‘had it on my side.’
Something happened once I completed my two decades on this planet. People expect birthdays to come with an impending sense of doom. Level-ups aren’t full of new cool outfits and power-ups, they are instead a countdown to a boss fight. Who is this boss? Am I prepared for it? All questions for later I guess.
Enough has been written about the lists, the Forbes, the under 20s, 30s, and whatnot. The race they create. A race against your peers. One that, alright, some can win. A race against time. Now, this is one that ticks me off. I seem to be running in the race, but time seems to be running out faster.
I don’t want it. I have never been much of a runner. No, thank you.
The world we live in expects us to achieve the world within the second decade of life. Capitalism wants all of my fun hobbies turned into money-minting professions, or at the very least content.
My relatives use my birthday as a twofold marker. One to remind themselves ‘Haaye, how time passes no?’ Two to remind me what all I should have gotten done by now ‘By your age, I was married.’ ‘I had a kid at your age.’ ‘I had a full-time job and a family.’ Okay woah, overachievers, good on you. Most of these are not on my cards or priorities for some time.
I did not ask for the gift of existence, on most days I don’t even like it much. But I will celebrate it how I want.
I am opting out of the race. I would rather hand out water and bananas on the sidelines. Maybe I’ll paint a terrible still-life of the banana which can neither be sold nor used as content. Who knows.
I like growing older. It still feels like levelling up somewhere. I don’t understand the ‘I am forever young, forever 18.’ of random Indian uncles and aunties. I would never want to be 18 again. I never want to be any of the ages I have already crossed. I know too much now, I have grown too much and I have too much to ever go back.
I want to look forward to ageing. A supposed big bad wolf, Ageing, a boss fight along with Time. I want to experience my body changing and cut it slack for literally keeping me alive. I do not want to employ the magnifying glass that media, magazines, and the internet keep handing out to women. I will not look through this glass. Ageing is beautiful and I would like to see the proof of all of the years I have spent on this usually terrible planet.
This year, the only fears I want are whether I have learned enough, whether I have loved enough, and whether I have had experiences that have planted themselves in my heart. I want to feel my growth like vines climbing up walls.
I will continue levelling up, and Mario will get the coin (at his own pace of course!). No countdowns or races that I am predetermined to lose.
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