When I turned 18 two years ago, I was on campus busy with my database project. After that I stayed up until 5am doing my laundry. I wasn’t happy but I wasn’t sad either. I didn’t care much.
Today I turned 20 and I’m actually sad. It isn’t because of how I would be spending my birthday. It’s something else. At 12.15am I hung up the phone after talking to a friend who wanted to be the first to wish me a possible 100 candles and that’s when it dawned upon me. I wasn’t happy and my heart was crying in the middle of a smile. I’m 20. I’m a teenager no more. It was such a strange and distractive momentary paranoia. Soon after, my wishful thinking turned towards ignorance. I wished I was ignorant. After all, ignorance is bliss and my Kindergarten days were certainly bliss. We sang happy songs and learned alphabets and numbers. Sesame Street and chocolate milk were a must. Everything was so full of joy wrapped up in bubbly innocence. There was no Lebanon, no Darfur, no Hurricane Katrina, no tsunami, no nothing. It was just Sesame Street, chocolate milk and happy songs.
I want Kindergarten back but I can’t. The train doesn’t seem to be getting any slower and it’s not like there’s any U-turn. Moreover the tracks are heading towards the unknown and the views on both sides all seem so jaded. Kindergarten was beautiful. Kindergarten is beautiful. It’s still there. I see it and it sees me. I smile at it and it smiles back at me. Kindergarten is beautiful and I so badly want it. I so badly want to reach out to it. We all so miserably want to reach out to it but before then, before we’re able to, we’ve got to reach deep within. Once we’ve done that, we wouldn’t feel the need to reach out anymore because we would have already done so. Kindergarten is indeed beautiful.
SudaneseThinker
SudaneseThinker
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
Congratulations, or whatever is more appropriate. 20 is not so bad.
I am 28 and my life is going nowhere. 30 will be very hard!
Oy, Drima - happy birthday! And I mean it, bro. Sure, there’s the lost innosence and the bliss of ignorance; but on the other hand, you’ve gained knowledge, experience and - most importantly - you have lived a life.
The kindergarten thing is still there, as is anything you have ever experienced; you could easily recreate that, had you wanted. But then what of music-making will you have left? What of sex? What of books? What of the pleasure of thought ?
You lost nothing, mate: but you have gained a world.
Peace out
Congrats, Drima (even though I’m a couple of days late)
I always say that if, at any age, you can look at your life and say “there’s no way I could have been where I am today, one year ago”, then the age itself is not relevant. You strike me as someone who would be able to say that about his life. So celebrate and enjoy! And have a wonderful year
Happy belated bday:D
The twenties are all the same and as each year passes, you will feel younger & younger, trust me;))
BTW, I’m in Haifa…
I am studying at the university, and during the war we were in Hebrew U in Jerusalem. Now we are back here.
Hi there!
I wholheartly congratulate! (even though also I am late.. sorry!)
I am probably not the one to give any advices here. I am 29 and I was not even good in being a child. But I am just figuring out how to get back to this child. (sounds esoteric, but I don’t mean it like that). Yes, I have lost my innocence, my naivity and so much more. But I feel that the longer I go this way, the more I come to a point where everything starts to be a miracle again. After thinking through “all” the theories (of course not all of them - but the ones that were important to me), principles, ways to see and explain the world, I come more and more to the conclusion that life itself - just being - really is a miracle. Thinking and rationalizing looses its power and it starts to be less important to “explain” everything and find the “truth” and more important to just be and adore life when- and wherever it is possible.. So (at least for me) there still is a way to go on and yet to become a child again in being astonished and overwhelmed by life and its possibilities (even though the rational and functional part will always be with me, too).
Good luck with everything you do!
How come everybody says he’s late and I just see this today? *0-0*
Drima, my man
you’re in the spring of your life and kindergarten will always be within you because that’s the basis on which everything else has grown.
Personally I made a vow when I was 9 or 10 NEVER to become a “grown-up” and I pretty well stuck to it, LOL.
Happy Birthday and till 120 !
Tse.
Cyber friends, thank you all so much for your wishes. I appreciate all your kind words. I really do.
=)
Happy Birthday :^)
Fellow Virgo, I see…
belated wishes ya helwa enti ya zaghnoona enti
Happy belated birthday, Drima. You’re upset about turning 20? I’m 48, I’ll be turning 50 soon.
But, believe it or not, I don’t want to be younger. I’m actually a bit sick and tired of young people (present company accepted) and their short-sighted attention spans, and unimaginative thinking. I find myself thinking along more radical lines than ever before. And I’m tired of the lack of ideas from generations younger than me who are supposed to be so full of ideas.
It seems to be a product of multiculturalism, but that’s another topic.
Anyway, about wanting to go back to kindergarten: a literature professor of mine once embarrassed me, back in my student days, when he analyzed a poem I had written, and noted that it was a subconscious wish to go back into the womb. He noted that it was a reductio ad absurdum - reductivism to an absurd degree. There’s a whole world, and a whole life to explore as an adult. To hanker back to a simpler time makes you into a simpleton, in the end.
Needless to say, I took that much into heart, and have always looked forward, not back.
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