I turned sixteen nineteen days ago.
It was a good birthday - people greeted me, my brother was slightly in awe, and I had the best birthday cake I’ve ever had. We were out of the country at that time, and while we were doing normal touristy stuff, it rained - cold and with an alarmingly increasing passion. Cue in, of course, shortened tempers and the desperate want for a good, new set of dry clothes or even just an umbrella. As we found our taxi, however, the rain stopped. Save for a couple of puddles and the driver’s confused awe at the highly unseasonal shower, it seemed as if nothing happened. The rest of the day turned out as good as any other, with a fantastic dinner and my first night out in a disco (where I just watched the festivities).
I wouldn’t want to try to decipher, in any field, what people say about it suddenly raining on your birthday - an unseasonal one at that. I might unearth a whole load of nonsense on omens and superstitions, positive or negative, that I’d be better of not knowing at all. After all, what the soothsayers or astrologers or even statisticians say wouldn’t have any certainty on what life would bring me for another year. Nothing anyone would say would have an undisputable sureness - except for God, anyway.
But I suppose it doesn’t really matter how my birthday went.
What matters, I suppose, is that I was technically one year older than I was the previous day.
Growing up in a highly American-influenced country, sixteen seemed to be such a mythical age. This is the age, according to the Western culture we seem to have partly-imbibed and partly-derided, where girls are allowed and even expected to have boyfriends.
Dear parents, if by some magnificent stroke of luck that you happen to read this, I have no plans of having one. Not at all.
In historical terms, this is the age Anne Frank never reached, dying three months before her birthday. This too, was the age Lady Jane Grey was proclaimed the Queen of England in 1553, before being executed nine days later for treason.
Sixteen too, is the age in which we see pop stars ascending thrones of fame, paparazzi, and in the rare case, talent.
Realizing all these does make me wonder what exactly have I done to the world?
I suppose it comes with the territory of being in a highly academically competitive environment. Somehow, in my convoluted frame of mind, I should have achieved or won something huge, something grand, or done something so immensely compelling by now.
But with age comes a sort of acceptance in the fact that I’m, well, a normal, average girl. That, while I do enjoy mulling over world affairs and other society-related facts of life, I’m still well in the vicinity of average. I have amazing friends, a fantastic family, acceptable grades, a tolerable penchant for mood swings, and more than my share of pratfalls and failed undertakings. I can write, but not spectacularly. I cannot play volleyball to save my life, nor can I understand softball or baseball enough to appreciate it. I love watching tennis and football but standing on any of their playing courts makes me feel like I’m violating sacred ground. The only kind of dancing I could do is either the required, easily choreographed one in PE classes or the unstructured, unchoreographed one in parties that requires no skill at all, save for the skill of losing one’s straitlaced dignity. I usually despise mathematics, but once I’ve realized I could do it, I find a bewildering sort of enjoyment in it. I can’t sing either, nor play an instrument fantastically enough to save my life.
Funnily enough, I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Alright, I could do with fixing a few things about myself like my ineptitude in physical skills and in controlling my mood swings. But I’ve gone to accept and whole-heartedly embrace the fact that I’m no prodigy, no genius, no debate champion, and perhaps not even a true valedictorian.
I’ve also gone to accept that I’m settled somewhere in the crossroads between a fun-loving partygirl and a prudish nerd. That while I’ve been thought of as mostly the latter, I continually defy it by developing a liking for nail polish, good parties (although I could never throw one), and dressing up. That while I’ve been so far, comfortable in the vicinity of being the latter, I’ve had my first ever shot of alcohol and danced like an idiot (emphasis on idiot) in a party the other day - and I enjoyed the latter. I have, however, sworn with the hope that it’d last, that I wouldn’t like alcohol, that I’d never find joy or even escape in it.
I’ve come to embrace that it would be difficult to classify me in the social stratifications of today’s youth. I’m neither the distinctly academic, prudish nerd, nor the party-loving girl with the minidress, a guy in each arm, and an inherent talent for socializing. Nor am I the stellar student in all fields or the struggling one.
I’m somewhere in between, and I’m embracing that.
Copy-pasted from my other blog.
