Re: Touching Twenty

Here's Shubham Gangopadhyay's take on "Touching Twenty". Quite an interesting read, this one.

A friend of mine wrote an article about his epiphany of turning twenty. The end of one of the most memorable era of any individual’s life - for no one can look at such a time and say “that’s who I was back then!”

Our teenage years are an amalgam of various characteristics - some which have phased out while others lie as dominant as Mount Olympus. A common track of thought when you’re twelve is “wow, teenage years - I’m going to be so hip and cool …” We spend the rest of our teenage years living up to those ideals. By the time you’re nineteen you say “Fuck, not again!” So, as all you teenagers who are on the diving board to the swimming pool of your adult lives - kiss your sweet teenage lives goodbye and embrace the darker aspects of life! Know this that if you thought you teenage years were confusing; in your twenties your problems increase exponentially.

Well, the twenties aren’t that bad. The entire problem starts with the whole expansion of freedom and boundaries thing. All your life you had mommy and daddy to look out for you and now, poof - gone, ( this won’t be a problem if you have a strong mind or your parents died/abandoned you when you were young ) kind of like insurance coverage but you’ll learn the horrors of that in your thirties and that’s another article.

We get so much freedom that we don’t know what to do with it! We blow it on stuff like movies, cars, babes and food ( occasionally, porn ) but mind you, I said freedom, not money. Soon you’re in a nice tomato soup of debt with breadcrumbs to stay afloat on while the red hotness of the soup burns into you.

After you go into debt, you sober up and find yourself a job or higher education ( which means you want to cling on to your teenage experience and never let go ). Here comes the difference between your teenage years and life in your twenties ( tweenage years? ). Your teenage years are plagued with confusion and anarchy about your identity but when you’re twenty-something all that self respect goes out the window! Life crystallizes before you - earn money; live life and reach for the stars.

Does the above notion ring a bell? Earlier, I said that when you were twelve you set goals for your teenage life, namely, being ‘hip’ and ‘cool’. Now, in your early twenties your new goals are “live life”; “earn money” and “reach for the stars”. Or so you think until your late twenties (after twenty five) when you get bored of such false euphoria of success and mellow down. Success is boring and unattainable - most people abandon their quest for it and seek other pastures to graze, like marriage. If you’re a man then this move is out of desperation for obvious reasons and if you’re a woman then it’s just pathetic because you should not be single if not married! ( Forgive my chauvinism - there’s nothing wrong with anyone, woman, being single till the day they die - but life’s just better when there is someone with you when you move on. )

So, here we come to the end of your twenties. You are a normal tweenager(?) if you are

A) In debt.

B)Been bad ass and freaked out.

C) Got bored of it and seek redemption in ‘marriage’ (big mistake).

So on the whole, your twenties are as exhilarating as your teenage years and you feel no euphoria in turning thirty just as you felt no euphoria when you turned twenty. That’s the way life is - nothing new to report. Your life is good, mortgage and taxes eating into your income; a long lost friend whom you met recently through Facebook has become the first man on mars or something; your house has more electronic gadgets with AI than you ever will possess in your life and your wife is pregnant! (Congrats- but is it your baby?)

Yeah, we have come a long way from those “dad, give me money for ice cream” to your spouse saying “give me money for chocolate”. Although life is sweet, I recall the times that were sweeter. So all you teenagers ready to dive into twenty - remember the days swept behind by time - of days when you went to bed by ten; when failing in math was the worst thing that could happen. The long hours we spent at tuition and hanging out with friends that stretched longer still. Getting up early to leave for school/college or sleeping on the bus as you come home.

And all you oldies about to embark on thirty - remember the day when you passed out of college; when you messed up your job interview; got your first job; worked overtime way into the night to meet expenses; met new and interesting people; met the old friends who built your life; the thrill of a promotion or salary; your spouse’s first kiss - the death of Michael Jackson and the countless hours of introspection. It’s not customary to smile but do that none the less…

…and brace yourselves for the exciting times ahead… (Probably)