On Turning Fourteen : A New Milestone

Hello readers, this is Maanasa here. I have a milestone to share with you - I just turned fourteen!

Turning fourteen has been a confusing yet awakening experience. Speaking of confused, I have been pondering over how this milestone will be introducing me to an upgrade in difficulty and the urge that I need to push myself harder. If there's one word that could summarise my present state, it would be confusion.

I am confused now more than ever, of what the future holds ahead.

You could compare this with an eclosing butterfly, a painful yet meaningful transition of my true self. This year has been all about learning, unlearning and relearning what I have known all my life.

I am in the thick of identity crisis and I'm still figuring out who I am, as I observe my younger self slowly chipping away and evolving into a more mature, future self. The beliefs and ideals I had depended on slowly began crumbling, with new experiences and new thoughts. Often, I am not sure what to believe and I am starting to question things that I used to do without second thought.

This year, I learnt to cherish being alone and valued time for myself. For the first time, my inner voice is beginning to recognize and appreciate all the efforts I have taken for myself throughout the year. I am very proud of everything I have done for myself and for others in my life and I am grateful for my growth as an individual. My values are widening and this new territory I am exploring has given me several moments of doubt, pride, joy and fright.

This year, something struck me - why aren't mothers celebrated too? I believe it is an equally prolific milestone for the mother as well - a life-changing experience. I'd want you to think about this.

Although this journey of getting to know my changing, fluid self has been mildly frightening for a person who likes facts and certainty, I have learnt to trust it, to trust change and time, that the future has something greater in store for me and that it is my job to enjoy it to the fullest.

I like who I'm becoming.

Comments

My Quiet Hours Doodling

(Doodle by author) Those strokes hold some power over my soul. Every stroke of black ink on the paper carries my flow of zen. I feel my zen flowing through the bold lines of ink, as it seeps into the thin paper and leaves an imprint on the next page, like a faint footprint of time on a page left unwritten, a sliver of the blank pages of the future. I feel my throbbing anger, roaming curiosity and emotion trapped within drain from my veins and flow out like ink. It calms the raging storm within, liberates the compressed frustration, when emotion and doubt cloud my sight, when I cannot quite find answers to questions within. I let it take form. I let my mind and soul wander on paper, and they imprint traces of great wars fought in turmoil. I let the strokes clash into one another; some overshadow others, some lie far apart. Yet, the raw self cannot bear rules. I let the imperfections rule the paper, and that is what makes me raw, real and human. In the end, the wild strokes embrace and I...

A Letter to Thatha

The little specks of pearl in the sky Glowing and fuming, With the vapours of our memories. In my swollen, glistening eyes, I saw the flare of your pyre in the stars, Like a spangle caught in my tears, The light of our love stretches its arms. I never knew a pain greater, When my fingertips caressed your cold, grey folds of skin I never knew I could feel so broken inside, With scalding memories and a heart wanting justice. With last words untold, goodbyes unsaid. I never thought the day would come, When I came home to your warm smile and open arms, But would instead be greeted by your empty chair. I never thought I would shudder and hide at your sight, Until you lay in the icy coffin like a child, Oblivious to our cries and wails. I never knew I would so badly yearn, To hear you call me one more time. I watched you become a child again. I never minded your faltering memory, Your greying eyes that often stared out in the open, I was content, With your pupils carrying a ...

Reminiscing

(Photo by Nong Vang on Unsplash ) It was a still, quiet night. The air seemed untouched by the maddening chaos in my mind. I glanced at the night sky, and spotted a star glimmering in the distance. The unusually gripping sight brushed me back to a fragment of my past, a chapter sealed long before. A whiff of my past my naive self still lived in. A life I had long left. I used to enjoy observing the tiny flickers of light, while my heart filled with hope for tomorrow. They looked like little flames whose glowing tips waltzed in the gentle evening wind. Those quiet, fulfilling moments spent squinting at tiny specks of light, while savouring the crisp air with traces of floral detergent from the clothesline, were one of a kind. Something no productivity chart would ever be able to explain. It was something I was not yet accustomed to; living a new life with new people, making new memories. Those little joys and fears that would excite my younger self. It's moments like these, moments...

fledgling

Search This Blog