Growing up..the jump from 22 to 23

22 is a difficult age.
When i say difficult of course i don’t mean the sort of difficult 13 was, unlike then 22 is a more sombre, more equipped and yet out-of-waters sort of stage.

There are many things that add to the difficulty of the age itself. Take for instance the fact that you are to be 30 in no less than 8 years and that you were 16 as long back as 6 years!

Surely…surely 16 was supposed to last longer. Every novel, every film gives you the idea that the sixteenth year of ones life is a considerably long, fanastic period of life that defies every scientific law and persists beyond usual norms. And yet the first few months of your sixteen’hood is spent unplugging yourself from the 15 mode and replugging yourself elsewhere. By the time you learn which switch turns what bulb on you are already shoved, pushed and kicked upto 17…a particularly uneventful age which is denied even so much as a mention in literature.
By the time you are 18 you can’t wait to be 20 and when you are finally 21 you want to look 16 again!

Despite its difficulties, i am, to be honest, quite fond of 22. For one it is a nice number, repetitive and even. It is perhaps also the last year i will be bragging around about my age to people. 22 is an affordable number, soon after you are an adult waiting for a job, waiting to get married, waiting for your first kid, waiting for your first grey hair……
That way all queues begin here. Once you are done being 22 you can punch in your ticket, buy your bucket of pop-corn and stand in line for your turn.

When we were younger…..than we are now…..we thought 35 was the most one should live. 35 then was like what 20 million USD is to us today, a number so big that it is incomprehensible. Amongst the stylish, still, 45 is the fashionable age after which one must…dissappear at the least! Either way 50 is a complete baggage which bends every shoulder except Sean Connery’s.

Growing up is the hardest when you are no longer growing but literally withering. If people were supposed to grow older birthday candles would have died out a good long time back.
Which reminds me, its my birthday tommorow. I’ll be an undignified 23!