Tangled@24

Prajakta Memane.
Aug 26, 2017 · 2 min read
Pic credits : https://goo.gl/images/np6tBf

Being 24 was never supposed to be about staring at the ceiling in the dead of night, and wondering about nothing in particular.

When we were young and naive, we longed to be older. We longed to be free. We longed to be 24 : the perfect blend of independence, minus most of the responsibilities.

24 was pictured as the light at the end of our tunnel, with cheerleaders like money, stability and the feeling of being a grown up beckoned us with colorful pom-poms and that irresistible body.

Whenever someone asked us ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’, our grown up version was never a 60 year old or even a 40 year old; it was always a 24 year old own self staring back at us, punching the air with triumph and giving the well-practiced award acceptance speech.

The ripe age of 24 was a perfect blend of running your own life, with minimum stretch marks and possibly no pestering kids. Being 24 was glorified as the time when we’d be earning big bucks and making people chase after us because we would be so in demand. Being 24 meant finally taking control of the steering wheel of your life car. The age 24 promised us a better clarity of our life: where we ought to head, which business to start, which person to marry. 24 was finally the time when our rigorous academic life bore saccharine sweet fruits. 24 looked like the top of the mountain we have been aiming to reach our whole life, when the struggles would finally be over.

But no one warned us that the test results of being 24 can come back negative. We never expected 24 to experience miscarriage of our persistent efforts. We weren’t told that when 24, we would have to accept the first job that comes our way, as it may come in the very end of the process. 24 was not supposed to be us drowning ourselves in tubs of ice cream, when the person with whom you pictured changing diapers of your kids would leave you stranded. 24 was not meant to be about still asking money from your parents, when you can clearly see them weakening day by day. 24 did not come with a possibility of being stuck in a dead-end job, when you contemplate all the ‘what if’s of your life.

24 was not supposed to be we finally reaching at the mountain top, to fall in the deep valley of tangles.

The hardest struggles are the ones which aren’t recognized as struggles.

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Prajakta Memane.

Written by

A fan of finer things in life.

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