I turned 24 last week. 24. At midnight, I laid in bed with a myriad of thoughts and emotions running through my head. Each thought ending with the same sentence… “What am I doing?”. My whole life I thought, that by age 24 I would be in a happy, long term relationship, have all the crazy, loose ends of my life all tied up, and I’d know where I was going in this rollercoaster of life. I thought that everything would be crystal clear.
Growing up, as a first generation Indian American I was supposed to always have a plan. Education, marriage, kids. These were the unspoken, but well known goals in life. And like any kid, this is what I thought was supposed to happen; what I had to do to ensure that I lived a happy life. Everything that I did, I did, so that I could fulfill these milestones. But why? I was constantly throwing myself in relationships that were supposed to work; relationships that fit all my requirements; always dating the perfect boy to bring home to my parents. Although they were all theoretically, “perfect” for me, they never worked out, and at the end of each of my failed flings, I’d sit back and wonder what what wrong with me? Was I not pretty, or charming enough? Did I not have a witty, funny personality? Why was I never good enough?
Finally, it hit me. The problem was that I was always trying to make things work because they were supposed to work. I was always looking, forcing, trying. Charlie Chaplin was wrong when he said “You’ll never find a rainbow if you’re looking down”, because I bet you the most beautiful, stunning, glorifying rainbows are the ones that you accidentally bump into. The ones that just catch your eye when you’re minding your own business, and then fills your heart with an exuberating amount of happiness.
So this is my promise to myself as I start 24, I will let the wind blow in whatever direction it wants to blow. I will be completely myself with every person that I meet, and fully trust that God has a plan for me.
It’s a new year, the same me… but I don’t know, I have a feeling that things will be different. The best is yet to come. 🙂
Stay sassy my friends.
Jenn
The Aperture of Life 