Most common things keep happening to most of us. After all, we
are commoners and no special beings. We have a great set of friends, a reliable
family and a job no matter how it is; well most of us do have these things. Yet
if you are over 25 by a good margin, there is a strong sense of loneliness that
could possibly grip you. It is a scary time because the decisions that one
needs to take at this age are life changing (life threatening?) and bound to
stay for long.
Most articles will talk about how at 25, there is a
difference between an adult and a non-adult and there is a confusion within the
self to counter and contain these two personas. There is always a denial mode,
and there are certainly friends and cousins getting promoted or getting married
all over. Then there are parents who think you are so ambitious that marriage
is never on your mind. Little do they know about your struggle to discover
yourself, your likes and dislikes, your wants and desires; which have evolved,
changed or vanished altogether??! For a
person who probably doesn’t know to handle tax returns well, ambition can be
far fetched and possibly, overrated.
I bet most of us who –
1.
Don’t have a girlfriend/ boyfriend or a fiancé, and/
or
2.
Don’t like our jobs, and/ or
3.
Don’t seem to have the same metabolism that we did
a couple of years ago,
Don’t even have a resume!
By this age we have lost many of our hobbies, probably
forgotten what our passions were like, had numerous fights with our boss for no
tangible outcomes, arguments with our mom on general generation gap issues,
disillusionment over the entire purpose of post grad education, one super
serious break up, have been thoroughly used by so called friends, learnt the
hard way the true value of real friends, probably lost faith in God, killed the
effervescent child within, lost our innocence, our original killer looks and
hearsay is that we have probably lost the drinking capacity as well. Not the
best age to be in, is it?
Has it happened that you signed up for too much work so that
you can prove a point at work or more often than not, you wanted to be
constantly occupied? It is another way of running away from taking decisions
and avoiding thinking. Eventually you would burn out and think that you don’t
have a life! Don’t be the craftsman of your own dead routine!
Do you frequently have to apply for leaves to attend
marriages of friends or cousins? Mere yaar ki shaadi is always an easier option
as you can ogle at random people but in a family wedding you are under the
radar for potential alliances. At such Hum aapke hain kaun shaadis, question is
– To look good or not to?!
It so happens that arrange marriage tops this list of
processes (or necessary occurrences) that seem to unknowingly disrupt your
peace of mind. You know of friends who dated for a lifetime and then suddenly
realized they do not know each other enough and parted ways. The floor slips
beneath your feet when you realize your online profile is making claims about
your love for kids and career and traveling blended perfectly with impeccable
homeliness! You would probably be making a decision to move cities, probably
leave your job to marry someone with whom your astrological match is more than
perfect. Such a crazy idea, but seems to have worked for generations together.
Then you wonder whether why aren’t you convinced that it will work for you as
well, applying the same commoners’ logic. Many a times you find yourself
staring at the laptop screen, figuring out what caused your only break up (or
the most serious break up), wondering when you will post honeymoon hashtags and
dinner date pictures; probably unconsciously crying and not knowing why this is
happening to you. Then there is always this regret of ‘I did everything right!’
and look how people who never did the ‘right’ things are so happy and have
everything in their life! What was indeed the point of being ‘right’ all the
time! Who defines the ‘right’ is a separate epic altogether!
You are almost on the verge of being jealous of happy
people, not out of hatred but out of self-pity and more than that, out of a
high degree of disturbance caused by uncertainty in one or more or all of the
aforementioned 3 key areas of life viz. partner, career and metabolism. Amid
this turbulence, if a dear friend asks you to share your concerns, you say “I
am ok”. You probably aren’t lying, you may be perfectly ok but you keep having
this feeling that something is amiss and don’t even know what exactly you need
to share! Such an incredible being you are! Such inexplicable things keep
happening to you!
You do have one friend each (minimum) of both the sexes with
whom you discuss the matrimony thing in detail and feel amazed at how exactly
you know and understand the deepest fears mutually. You catch up with these
folks regularly and discuss the ‘pipeline’ created by your parents and crib
about not feeling the ‘click’ when you meet a matrimony prospect. These are
probably your companions to go to Himalayas post renunciation or in the case
when nothing else works out for you. You possibly tried Tinder or Floh and
resigned on taking the onus of finding your own partner. Delegation is always
easy, be it work or life!
Like the solitary cloud with a silver lining, there is a
brighter side to this age too! On the pretext of getting married and
responsible soon, you can make more than most of the time at hand. Chill with
friends over weekends, go to endless road trips, spend money a little frivolously
on shopping and binge eating, go on a solo trip (preferably international) and
explore places, people and yourself! Try to revive the most engaging hobby you
once possessed, learn to dance, experiment with jobs and do at least one thing
that is dangerous. The next best dangerous thing to that should be getting
married!
All said and done, a day from now the calendar will turn the
page and a new year will present itself to us. A year with new possibilities,
new hopes and new aspirations! Let new dreams be formed as we infuse a new
lease of life into our daily routines, yet again! Hope each one of us sleeps
with starry eyes tonight!
Wishing everyone a super Happy New Year!!
