Age- Does it matter?

Right at this moment, I wish I was 20. Not like go back to the time when I was 20, but NOW where I am, I wish I was 20 years old, and I had 10 more years to hit that milestone of 30. The second decade of life is so short. You blink and it’s gone. I will turn 25, in a few months. While I liked the idea of growing up till a few years back. Now it is just daunting. Can’t I be 25 all my life? I remember that song, 18 till I die. And I understand the whole thing about- nothing can stop you from doing what you really want, and all that shit. But only people who have reached somewhere in life, can make such nonsensical statements. After the struggle is over, everything always looks rosy.

Or I wish, I was a man. A 25 year old man. Perhaps, that would have made things easier. I could work my ass off, earn a good name for myself, save a lot of money, and take my sweet time to decide when I should settle down. Live life in my terms, however cliché it may sound.

There are two ways of looking at my situation right now. I am 25, I love my job, I earn more than I ever expected, I am in a steady relationship, I should get married in a couple of years, settle down and have kids, and perhaps, live happily ever after. Except, the question hovering in my mind. Will that really make me happy?

I feel I was sleeping my whole life, and I have just woken up. The world is revealing itself to me. And now, you just ask me to lie still in the bed? I want to see the world, I want to learn, I want to experience. But I am 25. I am expected to get married and pop babies before I turn 30- which gives me exactly 5 years, of nothing. 5 years to settle down in that monotony that waits for me? Now, exactly, at this moment, if I were a guy and not a girl, I would not need to care about any of this. Not my hormones, at the least. My parents, who were extremely supportive all my life, to be “career-oriented”, whatever that means, suddenly want me to settle down as soon as possible. What they wanted for me was to get a job so that I am not financially dependent on my ‘significant other’. I am financially independent, yes. But is that all? That’s what I worked for all my life?

Would things have been different, if I was not in India? I see a lot of my friends- Indonesians, Thai, Americans- they don’t have to think about any of this. They do what they want, without any pressure. That way, they give their 100% to what they are doing, work or play. Isn’t that independence? The real deal? Even a person earning 10,000 bucks a month, is ‘independent’ financially.

So what would be the right time to ‘settle down’, as they say? What happens when you work all the way up, do well in life, and don’t find your ‘perfect match’? Then you settle with what you get. Is that better than leaving your ambitions behind and settling down as expected?

What about those who never realized that the time was passing? They woke up one day and realized, they were 30 years old and they haven’t accomplished as much as they would have liked to. What does one do then?

I wish there was a slow motion button for this second decade of life. I wish, just for these 10 years, I could control the time.

So yes, to answer that question, age does matter.

P.S: Yayy! I am back. Haha. This post (finally!) is a culmination of a long battle of conversation, I had with a friend, a fellow blogger, that made me 'think' after a long time.