Coming of Age

What does it mean, to "grow up"? Define "growing up".

Is it when you start doing things you never felt the inclination to do earlier?

Like when you have always belonged to the rare breed of 20-somethings that sleep at 7PM and wake up at 4AM (barring the occasional weekend or so). And yet, lately, you are having trouble sleeping, waking up at 1:30 in the morning, writing this, because your sleep is liberally peppered with dreams. Of enactments and re-enactments of your worst nightmares, of faces that got away, of what could have been and of what could be the scary present. All because you have not been able to let go of the incessantly boiling fury inside.

Like when you have always been a teetotaller, so you have never had the inclination to frequent bars and pubs. Yet you go to one and actually have a pretty good time there. Mistake me not, you are still abstaining from drink. Yet, having nothing better to do on a Saturday evening, you head over to one and end up feeling right at home amidst the raucous high-fives and catcalls. Although the highlight of the evening is still a visit to the nearest Coldstone Creamery!

Like when you have been a more-or-less careful driver all your life, even if you haven't adhered to speed limits, at the very least you have not crashed your own vehicles (not counting your dad's scooter!). And yet twice in the same evening, you manage to zip through traffic signals, oblivious to the bright red colour on it. Of course you were distracted, your attention focused on the GPS, since the area was unfamiliar to you. But distractions were not to be blamed, when you whizzed past two slower-moving cars in a fluid S-shaped move, before they even knew you were there!

Like even though you are into dance and music, you've never relished the idea of dancing at discs and DJs, simply because you aren't into gyrating in a pulsing grope-y crowd, to tunes that are hell on your eardrums. And yet, a lissome girl grinding up against you at a disc, to the tune of music that goes thump-thump-thump, wasn't so much a bad thing as you thought it would be!

Like when you have never needed the kind of gratification that strip clubs are designed to provide, simply because you've had the (")love(") (within and without quotes) of women without having to pay (without quotes, meaning you've had to pay in ways that do not involve currency) for it. And yet, when you visit one, it turns out to be a pretty novel experience, where "novel" here is NOT to be interpreted as "gratifying", since there was no "gratifying" to be had. Literally!

Karma is a Bitch. Those that have been screwing me over, wrongfooting me, undermining me, every step of the way, Karma will catch up with you. And she will cut and cauterize her way through. You wait and watch.