On Reaching 30

It was a Thursday. A Thursday that was too normal, too busy. One the preceded a work trip that coincided with many birthdays where I found myself happily in solitude in a new city.

I was worried what would happen to my old self once I reach this ‘adult’ age. But I returned home to find the room I left the same; just to relaize I now belong to a different age — the Porsche poster? Considered a classic. The Pokemon stickers? Faded and lost any meaning. The Lego Bionicle? Out of the market for more than a decade now. The music? Old enough to be rereleased with new artists.

I found myself no longer funnelling into different branches of life, but into slowly deepening my roots; as my interest of learning foreign languages is slowly replaced with my own mother tongues. My interest of absorbing other cultures was gradually complimented with finding deeper understanding and harmony within my own. The excitement of starting a new life abroad in new countries slowly depleted as I found through the years I only ended up sampling different models of hypocrisy and state failures.

The most important lesson was one I learned recently; I spent so much time living between the future and the past, I crippled myself with anxiety and nostalgia of what I can no longer control. Wherein all I had to do was live in the present; a life spent with family, a life spent reconnecting with old friends, a life spent between books, a life spent taking time to pet every street cat, a life spent in a slow and ‘unexotic’ demeanour, is a life one could ever ask for.