Growing Up: Is it just a perpetual emo phase?

Let’s talk growing up this March, as I officially bid adieu to teenage. It’s all about emotions today.

When I was a child, I wouldn’t cry in any movies. Not at the biggest tearjerkers of the decade.Not at the most defining moments in television history. I will have to confirm with my parents but I might not even have cried when I was a baby and didn’t get the movies at all. You get it. I just wasn’t a big crier as far as fiction was concerned.

Cut to present day me. I can(Read: will) cry at the shortest dog or baby videos. I cry at advertisements, at stories, at a heartfelt message from someone I love, at moments in tv shows and movies that aren’t even supposed to make you cry, the list is endless. I can probably cry on demand now. It’s a tad….embarrassing.

Exhibit A that I would totally cry at

How adorable are they? How do you not cry?

So, what happened? What moment in the 2 decades(nearly) that I have been alive completely changed the way I was programmed and functioned and made me this person? How did I end up becoming the exact kind of adult that my kid self judged my mother for being? (Sorry mom, but you cried at everything and It was beyond me as to how you did it) How did I, the strong baby, the fierce kid, grow up to become a crybaby, an emotional adult?

Let’s start from the first time it ever happened. I remember because the first movie I cried in was an iconic moment in my life. Let us go back 6 years ago. I had just finished watching Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and as Hedwig’s Theme played for one last time during the credits, one solitary tear rolled down my cheek. My adventure in the Harry Potter universe was finally over, I didn’t have anything left to do now. As the credits ended, I was full on sobbing and lost my sobbing-in-a-movie virginity.

That is the first time I full blown cried at the movies but it was understandable. A major part of my very young life had just ended. The truth though is, there was also an incident before that. While watching a Bollywood movie about three kids dealing with the realities of their mother’s terminal illness, I got overwhelmed and teary-eyed. But, that can be justified by my love for my mother and called a momentary lapse of my otherwise sealed-off tear ducts of steel.

The next incident I remember is when I cried a lot and I mean A LOT with my best friend while watching The Fault In Our Stars with my best friend. My mother was shocked to hear her stoic,always-straight-faced-at-the-movies daughter cried and didn’t believe it. She is probably shocked by this post too because we live far away and she might have not realised how bad it has become. (Hi, mom! I cry now.)

After that, it is a blur and suddenly, years later here I am, an adult who cries at the drop of a hat. It is said that you cry when you feel too much of any emotion, when your body is no longer able to handle the level at which you are feeling the emotion, and definitely not just when you are happy or sad. The real question now is: How did I get afflicted with this tedious affliction? How did I suddenly learn to feel so deeply for fictional characters? Where and how did I find *shudders* emotion?

With much long and hard thought I have come to the realisation that maybe, just maybe this is what growing up is. Is it possible that I have begun to climb the tall mountain that is emotional maturity? I mean, I have dropped the walls I had around me. I have accepted my emotions as valid and something that I should feel and express freely. I have realised life is too short to be strong. And as I go into the next decade of my life, I’ve decided to take this with me. So, I’ll go be emotional and be very emotional, I’ll be unapologetically un-stoic, I’ll let go and I’ll cry a little. Or a lot. Whatever I want. Whatever I feel like.

THIS POST’S QUESTION: Are you a big crier at the movies? Did you also have a sudden moment when your tear ducts just turned on at the movies? Let me know what you think about it,I’d love to hear from you!

 

Some Thoughts on Airports.

 

Let’s talk about airports today.

Airports. Grounded gateways to aerial escapes to a different world. A new city, a new country, a new continent. Ah, how I love them.

In my lifetime, I have taken a decent number of flights. In the last year though, I have racked up some crazy flying miles, what with my vacation across Europe and flying to and fro between home and university. All this flying has meant I have spent a rather significant amount of time at airports too. Hence, this post dedicated to airports, paying a homage to the unsung holder of all things duty-free.

The thing about airports is, they’re essentially a test of a person’s patience. A lot of the time spent there is in wait. Waiting for check-in, waiting for security, waiting for your mom to buy the entire batch of duty-free candy or waiting for boarding. The human mind does not bode well for waiting and when in wait, it wanders. All this wandering has led to a lot of thinking and a lot of thoughts many of which I wrote in the notes app on my phone and I’ll try to consolidate in this post.

Airports hold so many people. People from different walks of life with different goals, ambitions, dreams. It amazes me to no end when I stand to wait and look around to see all the people who have a different story yet at this epoch they all intersect, right here at this airport. Perhaps, someone is going home or going away from home. Maybe, there’s a new baby in the family. Maybe, god forbid, there’s a loss. Maybe, they’re going to their dream job, maybe they just missed out on it. The possibilities are endless and I cannot even begin to wrap my mind around the extent of these.

One thing I have also always noticed about airports is that time is seemingly not a construct in there. Any notion of day and night is only expressed through a peak outside. Inside, its always moving, never stopping. Airports are the land where time stops or rather, becomes irrelevant because there are people taking a flight to somewhere or from somewhere at just about all times and airports are always full. This led me to the very serious realization that an empty airport with no movement and no hint of day or night makes a fabulous setup for a dystopia or post-apocalyptic novel. Huh, maybe, I’ll write that, someday.

In all the airports I’ve been to, I’ve always seen a tiny glimpse into the culture of the city or country. All airports show little pieces of the personality of the place they are in. Be it the futuristic installations at Changi Aiport, Singapore or the grandeur of the airport at Dubai or even the wonderful food at the airport in Rome, it’s a little slice of what the country or city has to offer. Taking the phrase, “First Impressions are the last impressions” to heart, more often than not, most places put their best foot forward in the airport and thus, exploring an airport will almost always show you the best of what the place holds.

 

Airports are thus, apart from housing great candy and the best books, a building full of many many human emotions. There’s hope, there’s nostalgia, there’s joy, there’s sadness, there’s dread, there’s anticipation, there’s wonder, there’s  marvel. And for me, right there, wedged in with all the billion emotions, it’s almost like, there’s home.

THIS POST’S QUESTION: What are some of your airport thoughts? Comment below with what you think about it,I’d love to hear from you!

 

Surprise Lesson In Living In The Present.

Let’s talk about life currently and being in the moment, today.

Hello, wonderful people of the Internet! (A rather paltry attempt at being jovial and chummy, I do sincerely apologize.)

I will begin talking (Or typing, technically.) today as I seem to do always, with an explanation.About an hour back, I finished up the post detailing the first day of my amazing European vacation last month, the first in a daily narration of the entire fifteen-day vacation, with pictures and everything.(Lots of  pictures of the Eiffel Tower, no less, yes, day one was Paris.)

Just as I was about to click on Publish, I decided to address the niggling feeling eating away the back of my head since I had begun sorting through the pictures to add to the post.The feeling being, I felt a little criminal and a lot ridiculous for making 15 posts about a month old vacation when there’s so much happening right absolute now. (Not this very moment but you get my drift, right?)Now, what are these many things, you ask? Among many things, these include but are not limited to, finally deciding on a college, going to said college, maybe moving out to live in a hostel/dorm for the first time in my life, maybe moving to a city I’ve never been to, and meeting a gazillion new people, all by the end of this month.(That is a lot of commas.Thank you, English Grammar for being so simple and sorted.) Which, is actually only 11 days away. (Since it’s nearly the 20th in  speck I call home in this world.)Which in turn, increases the magnitude of all the emotions I’m feeling and dealing with.

And when I feel a lot of emotions I write on here.I bring them out.I involve every single person reading this in the silly woes of a teenaged girl and I keep you in the loop with what is up with me and what I am up to.Which is what I decided to do, this time too.So, I am putting the entire Europe vacation diary on hold and I’ll talk about what’s current and new and what’s happening now and how I’m feeling about it.So, this is your warning, heads up, whatever you’d like to call it. Emotions and changes are going to be sold by the penny next post on.Brace yourself.

So, what am I up to now? To be perfectly honest, it’s a lot of things that are embellished ways to say “nothing huge”. My phone hasn’t been working for the past week.When you have holidays and nothing to do, that isn’t the best of situations.I have to admit though,It hasn’t been all bad because of that.I’ve had moments where I’ve been glad I didn’t have my phone because I’m more efficient, fast or just simply had more attention to pay(Attention is something you learn to appreciate more than most people if you’re me) to other things.Meanwhile, I’m also reading the Song Of Ice And Fire series, by G.R.R. Martin (If you have or are too, please comment below.I loooooove talking about it.)I’m also watching Game Of Thrones(Again, If you are watching let’s talk) alongside as I finish each book.(Yes, I know the entire world has seen it, I  respected the fact that it’s an adult show, okay?) I’m doing some college-related shopping, packing, contemplating(A veiled way to say paranoidly overthinking) and mentally prepping for majorly three things.

One. The changes that are soon coming in my life.I have a track record of not being the best at dealing with change while it’s happening.I almost avoid thinking about it so this time I have decided to be a ‘grown-up’ about it and will deal with it while it happens instead of bottling it all up till I have an explosive meltdown.

Two.A new setup.I understand school as a construct, I’ve been involved with it for 14 years.College is something I have a rather as I believe, misconstrued image of, attributed to books and movies and I do and do not at the same time know what to expect.I’ve to learn and adapt and grow and I’m gearing up to do it in the best way possible.

Three and most importantly, socialising. As a rather antisocial and a pretty socially inept person this is the one that is the most daunting for me.But I’m also contradictorily, a  person who enjoys talking to people and getting to know them and is excited by the prospect of making all the lifelong friends I am going to make.So me, a shy extrovert needs the preparation to open up to people and get ready to do what humans are notorious for: socialise.

Apart from that, I’ve basically been utterly and undeniably bored.And that’s it, folks, it’s what I’ve been up to and that’s what you can expect from me now on.Cheers and see you later!

THIS POST’S QUESTION : What is something you’ve done recently that you’re proud of ? Comment below with what you think about it,I’d love to hear from you!

Be a guest blogger on Musings Of A Whimsical Soul: Click here to apply!