I've been putting this one off for sometime now...a week ago I turned 30. yeah, that scary milestone of age where you can no longer excuse yourself with the usual "I'm still a kid". I wonder what I had thought of being 30 when I was say sixteen or so. because I can still pretty well remember those days. and remember myself from within, and how I felt, what opinions and desires I had, how I was often challenged by others with the claim that I was too young, too rosy-eyed to make sense. I don't think I gave turning 30 ever a serious thought. not even last year when I was despite myself heading headlong into it. in fact, not even on the day when I did turn 30. but yeah 2 weeks before that something strange happened. I suddenly felt like the horror and the mystery of that number 30 were coming true when my life felt like it was imploding. like I was suddenly left alone, cheated, ridiculed, without a plan, with no defence, hurt, and yes, alone. what struck me then was the similarity with that awful bollywood movie (I couldn't bare to watch) - 'turning 30' and how cliched what was happening felt.

I don't know how things turned around. and now looking back those 2-3 weeks, everything feels so irrelevant. so petty, so inconsequential. maybe this is the real change. from then to now. having crossed that landmark age. its not the maturity, its perspective. its the realization that things take time. and intensity. and real change. for change to occur. and a lot of that is hardly reversible. hardly. you can blur it out if you want. you can force it to an unremembered corner. but if it occurred and it changed you, you cannot undo it. you cannot erase it. you cannot oust it from your life for a little aberration. a little imperfection. you cannot, meaning you are futile for trying.

it also then squares what's you and what's the world, and how one causes the other. I am not all supreme, I don't call all the shots. and yet I'm not helpless either. I can decide. I can choose but I cannot control what I am when I make that choice.

focus your mind on something or someone who moves you. or look at them for a long while in silence. and notice the range of emotions that cross your mind, and then contemplate the effect of any stimulus on you and how you would react depending on what part of the spectrum of your range you were on when the stimulus hit you. and a minute later that changes. and you change.

this one week I've felt really fragile, and this last month almost everything turned against me. only almost. cos I'm still me, I'm still alive, still calm and happy and wise. and although I haven't made myself proud, I still haven't let myself down in any way.

so I'm literally financially hard up, more so than I have ever been in my life. so much so that I had to ask my dad to sponsor my tickets for my sister's wedding. and this because I'm being paid much less for some months cos the school wanted to cut down expenditure and grad students being slave labor, we have no reservation utility. to top that I now have a place of my own which means my rent shot up and my bank account empties out as soon as the paycheck comes in. all this highlighted with the irony of receiving a check in my mailbox on the eve of my birthday for an amount of, guess what, 35cents!!! yes $0.35, not in coins but a check. the paper must have been worth more. (that incidentally, sums up the American attitude and efficiency)

my work has come to a standstill, and I've just been fighting the fact that I need to start over again. I've been teaching enough to not want to do it one more day, and yet yesterday was a good class and that made me happy. made me realize it wasn't me that was wrong. I'm still good at it, just as I thought I was 10 yrs ago when I taught my classmates statistics but never aspired to make it part of my profession.

and I am not a cog in the wheel. I get to choose and I'm looking forward to teaching game theory next year as promised, though I'm sure my knees will be knocking against each other at least the first class. and I'm still reading interesting stuff and thinking interesting thoughts even if they lead to nothing. and in fact today I remembered why I'd come here in the first place. to while away some part of my life studying something I liked. and I'm doing that. and my panic was only because I was trying to change that to a more purposeful and time bound plan to prove myself a genius.

compared to when I was 16 then, I now look better (and still get asked for my ID at times when I want alcohol) but get more acne! am more independent, and happy living by myself, and more loved, more confident, and have enough years behind me to know that I recognize people well for what they are and that I've been lucky with those around me. and I've done most of what I longed to do then but was restricted from, and there's still more and nothing now is stopping me. so here's to the 4th decade of my life. those are just words, don't read too much into it. life is just as good on the other side of every landmark, especially if in the middle of the summer, at 11pm last night the breeze turned cool (70 something) and the sky was clear with a glowing full moon generously smiling down at me