To The One Who Grew Up

You’ve gotten older; exactly 63072000 seconds older, but every second spent of the last 2 years has made you grow. In the softest of ways, and the harshest of ways; you’ve lost people, and people have lost you. Some changes in you make you proud, and the loss of some make you reminiscence the person they made you. You miss the carefreeness of a younger you, but you do not wish to be that gullible you. The 14-year-old you wanted to be 15 so that she could finally have her sweet sixteen. The 16-year-old you wanted to skip 17 and jump to 18; but now you are scared of moving forward, because you have learnt the importance of turning 18, the implications of it, the influx of expectations during that last teenage year, and what the age of 20 brings along. You have learnt, the hard way, that getting older and growing old is not necessarily the same. All those years you wished to get older, because you didn’t realize that you would have to grow old somewhere along those lines. Inevitably, time demanded that you grow old, and now you wish to stay right here, retaining some of that past, some of that simplicity, some of that old you that isn’t required to always make the right choice, or always be logical, and you wish to ward away some of that harshness that age brings along. It’s such a bittersweet feeling to be able to feel the second your childhood innocence is replaced by the reality of this life; when you are no longer in awe of the lack of tears in the eyes of people older than you, because you realize that the tears are still there, they’ve just learnt to hide them expertly. However, just to put a dash of optimism in these words, you need to always remember that growing old isn’t all bad. Life throws cannonballs at you when you could actually handle the blow, when the jar of conquering the world, and making your own fairytales is still full, so that you still have some left to use after that hit. I don’t know at what age, time, or situation you are reading this in, if it feels relatable or not, but I want you to read and re-read these words until you can believe them, “Never give more than what you can bear to grow inside yourself.” Never give more energy, love, happiness, carefreeness, or anything else that you might hold dear, than that which you can bear to be separated from. Grow old, but don’t lose yourself; this world will never suffice with want you want to give, it will always demand more, so give just that right amount. Keep some of that bad humor inside of you; keep some of that love for rom coms inside of you; keep that urge to dance in the rain; or that confidence to tell yourself that it’s alright, even when it might not look like that. Trust me, somewhere along this long path of growing old, you’ll find someone struggling just the way you are, and they’ll know, irrespective of what the world says, they’ll know what’s inside and they’ll love every single thing about it, even those you might not have been able to love.

بیتی ہوئی ان یادوں میں ـ پیاری پیاری ان باتوں میں ـ ڈوھنڈوں تجھے ہر طرف ـ ڈوھنڈوں تجھے اپنے خوابوں میں

Song Lyrics: Bachpan by Kaavish