18 trapped in 30!

Hey this is not a news headline or the forebodings of a catastrophe underway...This my dearies is the hopeless predicament that I find myself in at almost every cross and turn of my life...!

Ok...first let me clear some presumptions here...
My complete disgust at the ‘wanna be’s’....that hopeless clan of people who decline to acknowledge that they have so very crossed the years of their overflowing youth and so they should resist badgering the younger lot with their bubbling enthusiasm...
Like there is a sugary sweet aunty who is well past her late forties and still dresses as though she is Rekha incarnate...would often bombard me with questions like...Beta, where did you get that stylish hairstyle from? Or what is the latest trend in salwaar suits these days? And where would I find stilettos like those? I give her a big broad grin and oblige but in my mind I’m thinking....
....never mind what I’m thinking!
I know I’d soon see her sporting the same hairdo and if possible in a strikingly similar outfit as my own...She would giggle and blush till I succumb to the unbearable ache in my heart and melt away from there...

Point is, that I would rather die than be a ‘wanna-be’, who desperately seeks approval and wants to mingle in...And I would NEVER EVER dress like one...
Yet I find myself drawn to the younger lot more than people in the closer age bracket of mine...My dearly beloved says that in your mind you are still a teenager and sometimes much to my disgust actually physically rattles me up to wake me from this stupor....
Acha exaggerated ho gaya thoda sa....but I hope you get the picture.
I have to so often remind myself that I am thirty and woman start behaving like one!

Oho...and that’s just the beginning...
I feel the older we get, the madder it gets...
You suddenly wanna do everything that you missed out on, because earlier you used to think there is a lifetime to do all it...
And then suddenly you realize that those good old days are gone and the newer ones are also passing by...
Am I making any sense here....?

Alright then, like always, let me bring in the example of a dear friend.
You guys don’t understand it, do you, till I expose the bare life of my poor dear friends served on this platter?

There’s this dear friend, who is a big hit in the social circuit, specially with men (I’m not talking about me here...and before you jump to conclusions...I’m not jealous of her either....ok a bit...alright...I am jealous, period...but then each of us has her own domain...hahaha...are we still talking about us or territorial tigresses....never mind!). So there she is with all her charms and roping in men’s hearts with a slight flutter of her eyelids, dressing to kill, roping in for study programmes, smiling her way to a successful bout in chatting history...and making friends right, left and centre...and anywhere else your mind would like to wander.
To problem kya hain you ask....?
Well, many others are critical of her as having really lost it...the mind that is...sometimes even pouncing on her motives and reminding her to act her age.
What age yaar? Age is just a state of mind, isn’t it? Some wise guy said, you are as old as you feel...of course, my dearly beloved says, this wise guy must have been old like on his death bed and searching for excuses to cover his desperation. See this is what I mean....India and iske attitude ka kuch nahi ho sakta...!

Ok, when I was growing up...in age terms purely....I agree I was quite uninformed and thought people in thirties and forties were...well...mmmm...moving towards senior citizenship. And now when I myself have entered my third decade on this planet, suddenly my mind set has changed.....This is what I’d like to ask my dear readers....Am I being biased here...? I mean I’m not the only one saying that Shahrukh Khan and Salman Khan rock even past 40... “Thirty is sexy and forty is naughty” wasn’t coined by me...

So how do I accept my status now....? I have nothing against aging...I am not losing sleep over the wrinkles that might start to appear on my gorgeous skin or the stoop I might develop on my beautiful frame, or the pounds I might gain or the glow that might disappear or the hair that might thin (.... OH MY GOD....would it really?)
I am more worried about whether I would in my mind, age too.
Would I not be as spirited as I am?
Would I be forced by the cruel hands of time to act my age?
Would it become a sacrilege if I still mingle with my students and they continue to share their secrets with me as though I was a buddy of the group?

On this threshold, I suddenly want to wear clothes that I never wore before, I am incorporating new hobbies, aching to go travelling and discovering new places and people. I also want to experience new things and realize the essence of true living. Well, is it just a part of growing up or have I put my buttons on the reverse mode and going back on the lines which I crossed long ago?

What is old really and should we ever feel that we have aged?
I feel we should never.
The best things just get better with times.
The best thoughts just get more polished with experience.
The best way to be is in what pleases us...because ultimately we make the world happier, if we are happy.
The best epiphanies are those that we discover on the paths of self realization.
And the best time to live...is now, whether we are in twenties, thirties or forties...the numbers would continue to grow...and so should we, they way we want to. Amen!