Approximately seven weeks left before I turn twenty one.
Because when I look back, I see my life as one event after another, a series of sequences, of consequences, of oh-this-was-that-time-when-I-was-happy, and that-was-the-year-that-I-was-glad-to-leave-behind. That's the-thirteen-year-old-Trisha-being-an-idiot, and the seventeen-year-old-Trisha-not-being-an-idiot-but-not-being-much-else-really, and the nineteen –year- old –Trisha- being-a-fool-albeit-spectacularly.
Is there anything spectacular about foolishness?
Going through the motions. That's what I'm doing. Right now it's a sort of ho hum, just want to get term over with man, because the past few months have been crap, and want to go back home. And once I am home, it will be an oh my gosh, I'm having so much fun and Christmas in Calcutta is always so wonderful, but I'm worried I'll only feel that when I'm drunk. Anyway there's a reason I don't particularly want to go back to Calcutta right now, but let's not even go there because it's a stupid reason, and anyway I have better things to do than pay attention to it.
What things?
Nothing.
That's my problem.
Of course being the same sort of person through the years is something that is often looked up to, something that is applauded. I never understand why. How boring to to be the same, to have the same thoughts, the same reactions, the same points of view, through the years, at fifteen, at fifty. People should change, they should grow, they should have past selves and present selves and future selves, because what happens if you stay the same, and you know yourself inside out, you know what you're going to say, or what you're going to do, at any given moment, and then you just get bored of yourself. Like a stale marriage, except I don't think they've come up a way to divorce yourself, although by the looks of things, I'm sure they will soon.
So here's my problem. I am not yet twenty one, although time will soon take care of that, I am reasonably happy, reasonably enthusiastic about the future, reasonably reasoning my way through this bloody Life thing, and I am completely and utterly dissatisfied.
It's like you're walking down a college corridor and you hear voices behind you and you can hear what they're saying and it sounds stupid so you roll your eyes contemptuously and then the next minute you catch sight of a familiar face and you feel a pleasant warmth light itself inside you because you're fond of that face, and at the same time you notice a patch of sun on the a red brick wall and you feel the back of your neck itching, just slightly, and while seeing and feeling all these different things, essentially, you're just distracted, unable to focus on any one thing, unable to get a grip, get a grasp.
But it's not like you're losing your balance, stumbling, tripping, falling, desperately trying to look for something to hold onto either.
That is the tragedy.
I'm feeling a little alarmed. Not because I think twenty one is old (I did when I was twelve, but what do twelve year olds know, right? Especially if the diary I kept back then is anything to go by), but because it's a reminder that I should by now be firmly entrenched in what vague voices call Life, and I don't think I am. Or if this is Life, whatever Life is and I'm using a capital L for a reason, then it's sort of - disappointing isn't the word - not enough. It's not enough.
Because when I look back, I see my life as one event after another, a series of sequences, of consequences, of oh-this-was-that-time-when-I-was-happy, and that-was-the-year-that-I-was-glad-to-leave-behind. That's the-thirteen-year-old-Trisha-being-an-idiot, and the seventeen-year-old-Trisha-not-being-an-idiot-but-not-being-much-else-really, and the nineteen –year- old –Trisha- being-a-fool-albeit-spectacularly.
Is there anything spectacular about foolishness?
Going through the motions. That's what I'm doing. Right now it's a sort of ho hum, just want to get term over with man, because the past few months have been crap, and want to go back home. And once I am home, it will be an oh my gosh, I'm having so much fun and Christmas in Calcutta is always so wonderful, but I'm worried I'll only feel that when I'm drunk. Anyway there's a reason I don't particularly want to go back to Calcutta right now, but let's not even go there because it's a stupid reason, and anyway I have better things to do than pay attention to it.
What things?
Nothing.
That's my problem.
Everything feels like a hand moving mindlessly, instinctively, to swat at alien fingers on my wrist: there is no real emotion, no real thought, because all of it will be replaced in five years by something new, or it will have died and not been replaced, or it will stay the same, and either way, I'll be no happier, no sadder, no different than what I already am.
Of course being the same sort of person through the years is something that is often looked up to, something that is applauded. I never understand why. How boring to to be the same, to have the same thoughts, the same reactions, the same points of view, through the years, at fifteen, at fifty. People should change, they should grow, they should have past selves and present selves and future selves, because what happens if you stay the same, and you know yourself inside out, you know what you're going to say, or what you're going to do, at any given moment, and then you just get bored of yourself. Like a stale marriage, except I don't think they've come up a way to divorce yourself, although by the looks of things, I'm sure they will soon.
So here's my problem. I am not yet twenty one, although time will soon take care of that, I am reasonably happy, reasonably enthusiastic about the future, reasonably reasoning my way through this bloody Life thing, and I am completely and utterly dissatisfied.
It's like you're walking down a college corridor and you hear voices behind you and you can hear what they're saying and it sounds stupid so you roll your eyes contemptuously and then the next minute you catch sight of a familiar face and you feel a pleasant warmth light itself inside you because you're fond of that face, and at the same time you notice a patch of sun on the a red brick wall and you feel the back of your neck itching, just slightly, and while seeing and feeling all these different things, essentially, you're just distracted, unable to focus on any one thing, unable to get a grip, get a grasp.
But it's not like you're losing your balance, stumbling, tripping, falling, desperately trying to look for something to hold onto either.
That is the tragedy.
2 comments:
i notice a growing self-consciousness. which can only be beneficial.
I'm turning 25 in two months and while I don't think 25 is "old" per se, it does make an adult. And I actually have become an adult, with a sense of responsibility and that makes me very sad. You know, I can't slack with a free conscience anymore. I have a ten thousand word paper due in another ten days and I've been trying to read for it since OCTOBER. I hate it hate it hate it. So yea, its the opposite of what you feel about turning 21, but it makes me feel as bad. Age is not the issue, I think, but what age demands of us.
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