I turned 21 about 6 weeks ago, and unlike everyone I did not think of it as a number that would unlock things that were previously locked for me. Unlike others, it did not seem liberating, not even momentarily. Perhaps, the price you pay for being an old soul stuck in a young body.
Unlike others you would celebrate till the feeling sinks in, yours truly made a few pacts with herself to make aging seem less directionless.
Yes, aging because when you turn 21, you are closer to being 30 than you are to 12. Closer to building a real home, in life than to building sand castles for fun. Closer to losing people than finding new ones. Closer to paying bills than living for cheap thrills. Closer to being one sad swing set than to being a seamless yellow colored slide in the park. Closer to a lot of things that metaphorically seem to move farther and farther away.
But in hindsight, this feeling has always been a part of turning older, the magnitude has increased as the number increased, but the feeling has stayed the same. Turning 11 probably felt the same to a 10 year old me as to what 21 feels to a 20 year old me. Then, I was ending primary school, now, it feels like a primary part of life is ending. It is the same but still, very different.
Two things that turning older makes you realize is that one, days are long but life is short and two, it is all about maintaining the chaos. Very paradoxical, but very pragmatic.
In the past 6 weeks of being this arbitrary number, chaos has been a constant part of life and navigating through its maintenance has been a constant struggle. You initially try to fight chaos and try finding peace thinking that is maintenance, only natural since we are conditioned to seek peace.
But eventually you realize that maintenance of an optimum level of chaos in your life is your newfound definition of peace. This only happens when it gets disheartening to see and know that there is so much to do irrespective of how much you have done or are doing so it pushes you to maintenance.
The whole idea of maintenance is a derivative of nobody allowing us the time to enjoy what we have built so far, you are always asked to add more, build more, do more; to the already existing chaos. Now you see why we all suck at adulting? Because suck at maintenance. And this is because we are trying to maintain a paradox.
Brings me to the first thing that turning older makes you realize, your days are long, your life is short. Literally, this is just another paradox. Figuratively, your explanation or sense to this lies in the fact that at 21, you are closer to 30 than to 12.
As you grow older, it becomes easier to find a meaning in your day and forget the meaning of your life, not because you are consciously doing this but simply because there is so much constantly happening that you begin to live by ‘one day at a time’. It is easier to lose meaning of larger things, adulting just catalyzes this for us.
Hence, at 21, where I’m young but not that young, and old but not that old; the goal is to minimize living on paradoxes so that we do not suck at maintenance and build some personal oxymorons so that days seem short and life seems long to some day sign off with, “It was all the same but still very different.”