Of the year gone past.

You don’t recognise a bad year when its going on and we most certainly don’t see a good year until its gone.

Well. How has the past year been? Lounging on the bed in a bedraggled state sometime late in the night is hardly what you’d call an appropriate time to contemplate a series of events spanning a massive 365 days. But of late I have been discovering quite a bit about myself. One among the lot- I’m hugely inspired only when I’m bored to tears & when I resemble a half stoned hippie (My much loved used & abused bohemian long skirt being a testimony to that).  A few weeks have passed since the beginning of the year. Resolutions have long since been made and broken & now that the excitement of finally being an adult & legal has finally subsided I can afford to save a few quiet days for contemplation.

How has 2012 been to me? I tentatively dance around that question. Its an easy enough answer. Tumultuous. There I have my answer.I dislike dwelling in the past. So Lets move on i urge myself, You have your answer!. But. Its MY head you’re talking about. A head that can’t shut up. So the reflection continues. Could I say it was..Happy? Bad? Crazy?

January was a time we were at school. Exams, prep tests, textbooks & uniforms were the order of the day for the average 17 year old Chennai school girl that I was. 12 months on- my hair’s longer, I have a fringe(?) of sorts, lost weight & most obviously- I’m no longer two plaited (its one now)  & uniformed. And that was just the physical transformation. My mental metamorphosis has perhaps- I’ll have to admit- not been the joy ride I had hoped it would be.

When I read all those coming of age novels I’ve always cringed at their experiences, but back then I was a naive pre-pubertal awkward & gawky teen wondering why growing up had to be so unnecessarily painful & secretly thinking the protagonist’s  screwed up thinking had something to do with all the mess. And now when I’m finally over the threshold of official adulthood I can finally understand it all, having gone through my own series of messy situations,mishaps, depths of depression & highs of happiness.

I can emphatically state that I am no longer the fresh faced school girl who walked out of school gates. Disappointments can teach you to grapple with the hard truth, failures teach you to guard yourself, let downs make you a touch cynical and..and wait,  does the Heart rules over the head?..well that’s a lesson I’m still trying to figure out among so, so many others.

 How can a single person get through with all this in just 300 odd days? Well you’d be surprised how much of a learning experience transitions can be. I’ll be honest with myself. I have most certainly seen better years, but none as educative as this one.

I wonder if people write those growing up books because it helps them gain a better perspective of what they’d gone through. Becoming an adult is no easy task. Every time I stumble (and this year a bit more than usual) I find a little message signed – With (tough) love, Life.

Its 14^th of Januray, 2013 and I look back to the year with wonder (how the hell did I get through this?), amusement (I really said/thought/did that?), a hint of regretful longing & just a teeny weeny hint of sadness for the naiveté I feel I lost somewhere in the process , because its when the years go by do you realize innocence is indeed a priced possession that you can’t wish back. And I am realizing that it’s a word is so much more than just a physical state of being. Instead its a possession that is so clearly lost in the hurry to become big, to grow up & to grow fast.