Bye Bye, Baby

I turn 21 today. The funny thing is that I don’t feel like doing anything. Eating, drinking, planning anything special, none of that. I suppose old age has crept into my soul. Last year, when people called me old for entering the third decade of my life, I was still joking “what are you talking about? I’m more like three. I’ll always be three.” No joking mood for me anymore. Don’t even feel like feeling anything.

When did the jadedness start? On my most recent plane trip, I queued up three movies I wanted to watch — I don’t remember which ones now because I slept through the whole thing. That used to be my favorite part of flying, the opportunity to watch anything and everything guilt-free. Now I’m just tired. Nor do I have the same love for supermarkets. “I like to stand in front of the dairy fridge at Whole Foods. It’s an electrifying experience. You stand at a point where a decision can lead to any adventure, any flavor of life.” I once wrote. So much was ahead of me then. So much excited me then.

My mom tells me how she misses the boy that decorated the house for every occasion and drew cards for every holiday. I loved Christmas ornaments, the bells and the shiny golden figures. I loved all the crafty things — origami, paper models of Hagia Sophia and the Pantheon. I spent hours and hours on those models, folding along the dotted lines, erecting buildings from a flat sheet. I don’t know where they are now. A box somewhere, probably. I don’t know what to tell her. I don’t know where that boy went, either. Maybe he went to join his Christmas ornaments on the tree. I miss him too.

In high school, when I saw the portrayals of teenagers in the media, I used to think “hmm, why isn’t my life like that?” When will my life begin? I was convinced that every day is one step closer to something. That when you get somewhere, you will look back and be amazed at how far you have come. When graduating, I thought to live an interesting life is a fight worth fighting for. That the stories we go on to tell will be worth telling and retelling. I was young. There was time for my life to begin. Now I am so scared, of how this might end.

How did my outlook become so bleak? In an age where many passions have gone, what ought I live for? When I finally feel ready to free the grand romantic in me, what if he’s already gone? After years of wear and tear, struggling and crawling.

I’m debating whether this is for the best. Growing up means simplifying. Weeding out the things that weren’t meant to be. Who knows, perhaps I wasn’t meant to be a romantic. Perhaps I wasn’t meant to be a craftsman. It was easy for me to dismiss the fragrance Blanche when I first smelled it in Byredo on Wooster Street. Dull, common, like a Dove bar soap left behind in my college dorm bathroom. But as it developed on my skin I started liking its simplicity and immediacy. This image of clean laundry, effective albeit singular. Lingering but containing vigor as well. Refrain from strong desires and strong scents, the Yellow Thearch once said. It is no bad thing to celebrate a simple life, Tolkien once said.

The simpler is not necessarily worse. Even leaving things behind can be progress. No part of you or your interests is ever really lost. They’re just lying somewhere beneath, making way for something new, waiting to resurface. So while I wait for the romantic in me to reawaken — if he ever does — I’ll not be so grand. Willow planted without intention, somehow, grows into shade.