The year that was - hits, misses and growing old.

While working days are like HD videos played using a dial up internet connection (buffering…buffering... buffering…YAWN), vacation days are like a movie when it is fast forwarded 32X. More so, if it is Christmas. A fun filled masala entertainer with frequent intervals to eat high calorie food in large quantities with zero guilt and maximum gluttony. Back in Oman now, wondering where to place all those shoes I bought during my shopping spree at Cochin, and the extra kilos I gained around my waist. And by that I have been denied the right to even look into any shoe shop for the rest of the year. So 2014 will be the first year of my life I will be not be lusting after shoes. It’s not a resolution or anything, just a decision enforced on me. 

Let’s see!(evil grin).

2013 had been an okay kind of year. It was not good for me, or my batch mates, as we all turned fat, lazy and a year older. Our kids also became naughtier. Looking back, I remember being in a large group of friends, whose whereabouts are not known to me now. How a person who came to school with me can be in a place where there is no internet, I sometimes wonder. But it is not about internet. It is about the efforts we take to keep in touch. And this effort originates from genuine friendship. All other show offs and fake pretense die in time. And I lived to turn thirty to establish this shocking revelation which is already known even to small children.

Everyone who turned thirty now knows what betrayal feels like. Some friends walked away from my life for good, leaving me distrusting anyone who crossed my path. If I had 40 friends when I was 18, and even during my 20’s, I have like five friends now, to whom I don’t open up for the same fear of betrayal. But true friendship exists and at thirty realization dawns clear and most of us almost know who will stay and who will not. We are all judges at our own courts. 

2013 also took away a major portion of my hair. I dread the thought of combing it these days, as that’s when whatever is left also falls off! Anyone else turned bald at thirty? Please let me know!

2013 also marked certain other changes. Loud ringtones irritate me like no other. (Earlier I used to be loud myself so these ringtones were insignificant in comparison). I also can’t stand the fact that any person in my address book that uses whatsapp appears on my whatsapp list. This includes the shopkeeper at whose shop I gave my pressure cooker for repair, the plumber of the building where I stay and the sales person at a retail store who promised to call when there is a sale. And we wonder why people still swear by BBM.

I have also stopped screaming in potentially painful situations like paper cuts, knife cuts, and other minor accidents.  I also do not alert the neighborhood if I discover a spider in my bedroom.

2013 was also the year when some of my best clothes started showing their age. They are either pale, faded in patches, or the fabric has given way to anomalous spaces. They are still too good to be worn at home.  As such they now occupy a backseat in my wardrobe, and have grown hands and feet themselves, thus pushing the newer ones in such a way that once the wardrobe is opened it rains clothes (giving my spouse a false impression that I have too many of them). He is very unlikely to believe the hands and feet story theory.

Coming to think of it, I have the Joey syndrome now. Every birthday I am like ‘Why, God, Why me!!?’ and I dread to death those number candles.

Even though it is a depressing fact that we are not growing any younger, it’s a solace that nobody else is. 

And whenever I feel low, I think of Priyanka Chopra. 

She is older than I am.

 Buhahaha ;-)