Growing up: The Story of my Favourite Colour

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

When I was 4 and I just started going to school, my favourite colour was pink. I obviously did not remember that but my mum had asked me a bunch of questions when I was 4 one of which was about my favourite colour and just started school and I found a little notebook with the answers. They were quite interesting actually. I was a big fan of Sabrina the Teenage Witch. (One of the reasons I haven’t still watched the horror take on it. Sorry, not sorry.) There are also many photos of me with a lot of pink things so it is safe to say, that this can be considered a fact.

Anyway, the bottom line is, my first recorded favourite colour was pink. Then, as I grew up and my interests and personality changed, naturally, so did my favourite colour. My next favourite colour was black. (Dun dun dun.) the very obvious question that must be asked is: why that very sudden and very polar shift in personal taste? How do you go from pink to black? Even in a color box set, those two are so far away?

I think I’ve figured out how. At 4, I started school. In school, I interacted with many people my age and older. I was told that pink is a ‘girly’ favourite colour. I was not a ‘girly’ girl though and I didn’t want to be misjudged on my favourite colour. Most of my friends were boys, I didn’t mind being messy or dirty, I liked sports and I liked to play rough. Does that sound like someone whose favourite colour is pink? 9 year old me believed it did not and since pink didn’t suit my personality I willed myself into making black my favourite colour. It was perfect. Apart from it being super dark to hear a 9-year-old say their favourite colour is black, the adults were always a tad weirded out.

After that, as I grew up more, I came to a point where I had no favourite colour. If someone asked, I said I liked all colours equally or worse, I like rainbow colours. I thought I was a genius for saying that. This stemmed from the realisation that favourite colours are a childish thing and as a super grown-up teenager, I’m obviously politically correct and so wise, so no favourite colour it is. It was all going great except I realised pretty soon that I really don’t like green or orange all that much.

As I reached adulthood, I found the maturity to accept, finally, once and for all, that I have many favourite colours but I do not love all colours equally. If I had to choose one, I’d say blue and that’s all. I also like pink and black and purple and yellow. Blue is just a colour that appeals to me right now and is not a statement about me being a ‘girly’ or ‘boyish’ girl or being ‘politically-correct’. It is simply a colour I have a preference for at this point in my life and it is for sure not a big deal.

I’ve realised that growing up is about being open and accepting of these things about you. The little facts about you like your favourite colour, while seemingly trivial are still important and the only person whose opinion matters here is you. So to my twenties, I take with me acceptance of and joy in who I am, love and pride for all these little details about me, to be able to say my favourite colour is blue because it is and to not let society define my favourite colour. To live with one simple motto,” I am who I am. No apologies.”

THIS POST’S QUESTION: What was your childhood favourite color? What is it now? Comment below with what you think about it,I’d love to hear from you!

 

 

 

Growing up: Roaring 20’s

Let’s talk growing up this March, as I officially bid adieu to teenage. It’s finally D-Day today.

Hello everyone. Today, the 10th Of March 2019 is my 20th birthday. I have now existed for at least 2 decades,240 months,7300 days,175200 hours,10512000 minutes and 630720000 seconds. That is a long, long time. Today’s post is for all intents and purposes, my birthday post, where I look back, look ahead and at now, as well. Let’s begin.

20 years ago, I was a tiny, crying, very red baby just fresh into the world. It was still a whole another century and the world sat on the cusp of the 21st century with many hopes and dreams for the wave of modernity it represented. It was still the 90’s, the era of good television, great music and even better clothing. The 2000s were almost upon us, with their nightmare-inducing fashion choices, still good television and still decent music. It was a much simpler time.

20 years hence, I am not-so-tiny, still crying, red no longer, very much an adult and already a little bit over the world. We are nearly 2 decades into the 21st century, which is running at such a pace that each decade feels like a century in itself. The world is, in some ways a better place but still, a work in progress with so much left to fix. It is a very complicated time.

Not much has changed.

In these 20 years, I have learned and experienced so much. I have learned to talk and walk and eat and jump and run and so much more. I have completed 15 years of schooling,2 years of college and am so much wiser. (Questionable)I have trained in dance for 12 years and I’m still dancing. I have been to 9 countries,2 continents and have travelled to and seen a sizeable(yet tiny) chunk of the world. I have read and watched beautiful stories. I have opinions and thoughts and likes and dislikes. In these 20 years, that very red baby has become a person.

Turning 20 is a monumental birthday. It signals the end of another decade as well as of adolescence. I have grown a lot in this decade as well as my teenage years(Perhaps not in height but mentally yes) but I am honestly delighted to say goodbye to my teenage and all the ‘joys’ that puberty brings. I can, however, no longer blame my hormones for my behaviour, which is a tragedy. Thank you teenage, for making me the strong-willed woman I am today.

20 for me is a birthday full of hope. I am finally entering my 20’s, the peak of my youth, the beginning of the years in which I find the life I will live henceforth. I have no idea where I will end up and this is the starting point. I will finish my formal education( Education itself is lifelong, only formally will I be done), I will get my first actual job(I have actually had a non-paid writing job for a not-for-profit organisation already), I will live in my first house, I may even get engaged and/or married!  How crazy is it that all these milestones of my life happen in just these 10 years!

All these are such “grown-up” things in my head and hence I find myself struggling a little with the concept of growing up around this birthday. I am no longer a “barely-adult” adult, now I am a real one even if I don’t necessarily feel like one. I want to take my 20 years of existing, take the best out of them and take it with me as I enter this phase of my life. I would like some more optimism, as the pressure of adulthood, as well my teenage rebellion, has taken quite a lot of it away already. I would like to know it’s okay to depend on people sometimes, okay to miss people and so great to feel love and be loved. I want to hope and have childlike imagination with responsibility and courage. With all this and much more, I launch into my roaring 20’s, here I come!

THIS POST’S QUESTION:  Are you going to/have turned 20? What did/are you feel(ing) like? Comment below with what you think about it,I’d love to hear from you!

 

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!