An Ode to my 29 year self.

This is an ode to my 29 year old self. Looking back at the remarkable 20s lived so far. This writing is a part of private writing that I was compelled to write for myself to finish off with an understanding of things in my life so far. I share it here for no specific reason, but because I felt a ping in my head to do so. I am aware of the fact that all of our lives are absolutely unique, thus all these decades will not have the same resonance with everyone. And this one beautiful thing about life has always made me curious, time often shapes us by having a dance with situations and incidents. When I look back for myself I see bunch of things, incidents, opportunities, serendipities coming my way and I see myself grabbing some and punching some. Not really taking time to hold on to each of these, I sense a lot of flight or fight mode with myself. 20s are strange, here you are a full blown newly formed adult. The whole perception of the world starts to change slowly and slowly shattering every glass the you have formed with your safe guarded experience of childhood, shadowed by your parents or your close kins by that time. This is the time when you have the most voices, rather noises around you pulling and pushing you as per the conditionings. Now the choice is in your hand for who you want to become. My 20s have been a decade of me going on a trek on this huge mountain of self discovery, where is started off as thinking I am equal to this mountain with a sense of ego. And on my way finding stones and obstacles in the forms of conditioning, unlearning, playing small to stay safe, holding on to my ego and feeding into it. Often burning in the rage and anger of the baggage I had while I started this trek. Only to reach and finish this one trek of the life and mountain becoming more like water carrying a bunch of learning and knowledge. Some that I read, and some that I learnt while being on this trek. This was the time when I started seeing people as humans rather than their associations and relationships with me. I saw my parents, my siblings, my partner, my grandmother, my friends all of them as humans, who are carrying their own life stories about which I may have no idea. I saw some of my friends getting married, some have babies, some planing to make a baby, some living their life all alone. I saw some of my friends flourish as individuals, make an amazing career, while some choosing to not do so. I saw how the interwoven play of judgements played around with all of these people. I saw my relationships change, with myself and with others. I developed the understanding of this yin and yang of life. I questioned everything around me, I saw the blind belief system with a broken spine and a rotten idea of perfection. Flaws, it made me realise the best of us will always have flaws and they are meant to be accepted and worked upon. The key here is to accept them first, acknowledge them and then work on them. I also saw bigotry around me, an arrogant bigotry and often made me wonder why were these people not seeking knowledge first? Only for me to come to a learning that we will forever be making choices. Choices to either use our ego and lack or Knowledge and awareness. This is pretty valid for your inner self as well as your projection on the outer world. I learnt that making excuses is an act of laziness. We make excuses most of the time because we do not want to carry much effort, much work into either ourselves or with any business going around for us. It made me realise that we often prefer looking ourselves from other people’s lenses, because if we will see with our own lens it will shatter all the filters of fake facades that we have put for the world, and show us the bare naked unfiltered self. I learnt that it is always a good idea to see myself with my own sense. Because, the fact of life that I drew from here is that we are all alone in our journey, we just have few people helping us walk to our homes. So you better be your best friend and the most honest critic. But there is a home within us where we are walking each moment of our lives. It also made me realise that this is how we cast spells on ourselves. Our inner narratives and neglect are our everyday spells to our soul. I saw everything so far in my 20s with an open eye and mind. I saw them as they were sometimes beautiful, sometimes quite ugly and uncomfortable. I heard every word that came my way with my ears wide open and my brain and heart wide open to process them. But having said all of this, I understood it is my journey to take it and mould it in a way that will be truest to my most authentic self. And that my friend I call are my values. 20s taught me to build my own strong value system. As I finish this blog off, I want to sum it up by admitting that 20s taught me to alchemise my rage into this beautiful free flowing water filled with various beautiful fishes of awareness, calmness, wonder, curiosity and life. Sometimes I make sense of it as who I am now is like a tree, with string roots going deep inside the earth, I am watering it everyday so that it gets stronger. Above the ground, the leaves are open to weather all the storms and climates with standing tall. Cherishing the beautiful spring and staying firm during a dry spell or a harsh wind. Sometimes I make sense of it as a strong neural system going cross this galaxy and space, electrifying carrying this pulse of life and knowledge. So far this is where my 20s lead me. Now when I look back at 19, I made a random very strong prayer which was to help me myself fully. I think the prayer kind of worked. Signing off by saying that grateful for everything that came my way and made me who I am today an ever changing evolving being with a strong spine this time. And now cheers to the next decade and beautiful life ahead!