Thursday, February 5, 2009

Growing Old(er?)

Age should not be measured by how much time you have been here; it should be measured by how much you have lived.

I read this somewhere and I thought it was pretty cool.

2008 saw me turning 30. It also saw me freaking out about turning 30J. Age had never been a point of distress for me so I didn’t see the breakdown coming. I always thought that physical age does not limit how you feel about yourself. It is your attitude that decides how you enjoy life at every stage and age J

Well, all that was thrown out the window the moment I turned 30. I enjoyed my birthday, because I was very happy with life at the time. I had a great job, a beautiful family, luxurious lifestyle, what else could I ask for? It actually took a couple of weeks before I was hit with the realization that I had turned 30. I had heard friends talk about the big 30 but it never seemed to bother me. In my naïveté I assumed that I was immune to the affects of age on myself.

About 3-4 weeks after my 30th birthday, I suddenly realized that life had changed a lot. I started thinking about how I ‘celebrated’ my birthday and just the thought was enough to give me depression. The ‘grand’ celebration included a take-out dinner (from a favorite restaurant) and a movie. I enjoyed all of that at the moment but I was depressed by the fact that I had to wait for a birthday to do something so simple as a dinner and a movie. Having a child and friends who have children has changed the social scene of life and it suddenly hit me.

I was at a point where I started thinking that life didn’t have meaning anymore. Up until now it had always been about the next thing I needed to achieve. Good grades at school, college education, career, marriage, job, higher education, children and finally settling down (or something like that) in life by buying a house, having a stable job etc. I had enjoyed the ride so far, and even had a few adventures and my little unconventional indulgences like a sports car as my first car. But finally I realized that I had come to a stop. I didn’t know where to go from here. So far there had always been some goal in life that needed to be achieved. Something out there still incomplete but finally I had achieved all that conventional wisdom advocates.

So I found myself thinking about it a lot. The constant question in my mind was ‘what next’. I mean I still had small goals so to speak: promotion at work, another child etc. but nothing seemed big enough or exciting enough to look forward to. I started setting small goals for myself and in the process, I finally finished small projects around the house, got a lot of things from the family ‘TO DO’ list taken care of and actually started an exercise regimen. It still wasn’t enough. At the end of every goal achieved, I came back to the bigger question of what next?

I may be experiencing a classic mid-life crisis but I couldn’t toss the vacant unfulfilled sense of emptiness. Yeah I know big words coming from me but you get the idea. I guess everybody goes though this in life where you come to a point beyond which life hadn’t been defined yet!!!

I moped around, threw tantrums, fought with my husband and was miserable in general. In the end, I decided to try doing something I hadn’t really done so far, at least not to the extent that I wanted to anyway. I had been thinking about social work and working for an NGO or for charity etc. So basically I wanted to do something selfless. The answer came to me through Dance.

My dance teacher in Dallas has an NGO and I started helping her with the annual festival organized by the NGO. Believe it or not, I had found my jive. I enjoyed doing something selfless. A task that gave me nothing more than the satisfaction of being able to help. There was nothing to be gained, no goals, no agenda, just plain help. I enjoyed it immensely even though I had to spend a lot of time doing things I didn’t quite know how to do but I learnt them along the way and the end result was actually good. Another person I started helping was a dance teacher from India who needed some help with outing his NGO online. Well, 6 months down the line, they now have a blog which is updated regularly. I am getting more and more involved with this NGO and I am having fun doing this.

Maybe this is my way of dealing with my mid-life crisis ( I am wondering if you have a mid-life crisis at 30, will you die at 60?) I have found a purpose in life again (at least for nowJ). I will see how ling this continues. Meanwhile, I am my happy cheery self again and I am having fun. I am once again trying out new things and have formulated new goals for the rest of my life. I realized life isn’t over yet so why mope around thinking about the time when it will be.

Have fun and take life one crisis at a time…

2 comments:

M A said...

not 30 - no say I guess
But what I can say is that it is interesting to know the thought process that led to you involvement in the NGO... and the change in the motivation of your goals...

Swati Aparaju said...

The motivation is still being able to help somebody in need. I just didn't realize that being selfless could actually be rewading :) And Kuchipudi being close to my heart, it is a good way to start. Every journey begins with a single step right?