Week 15: Yet another year closer to death JENGJENGJENG!

Back when I was 19, one of my favourite songs was 23 by Jimmy Eat World. I can’t remember how I came across all seven minutes and twenty four seconds of this masterpiece of violin, guitar, bass and drums but I knew I was in love with the song thirty seconds into its instrumental intro. It is a song about frustration. It is about unrequited love. It is about how long is too long before you put an end to a waiting game. It is about letting go at 23.

Back then, I was going through some personal shit (shit here does not equate to ‘bad’. It’s more of a one-of-my-favourite-words-in-the-dictionary-kind-of-context – you can say that it can equate to ‘stuff’). I wanted to, yet I didn’t want to but, dear God, how much I wanted to! And all this while, an internal battle waged itself in my head – the slip ups I made which I berated myself heavily upon, yet I also berated myself heavily for not being forthright with myself and what I wanted. Yes, it was kind of messy and confusing.

Needless to say, listening to 23 when I was driving home alone late one night, I became afraid. In all honesty, I was suddenly terrified that my fate would end up exactly as that of the person in the song. I didn’t want to stick around waiting for someone till I turned 23. I didn’t want to be as embittered as J.E.W. (Hey! Another conspiracy theory for Waiking to ponder over!) when he turned 23.

When you are 19, 23 seems ages away. That was how I tried to calm myself down. I told myself that 23 was four grand long years away and surely, by then, everything would’ve changed. And even then, I couldn’t see myself turning 23 – not in a morbid live-fast-die-young sort of way – because 23 was still so damn long away!

Well, I am now 23 and my circumstances did NOT turn out like the song (Or did it? Hmmmmm) God bless. But I’m still in shit, except that it’s different shit. I guess some things never change.

Anyway, in order to steer this post back to a more light-hearted and celebratory mood, I have composed a 5-line limerick:

Happy birthday to me,
I’ve made it to twenty three,
But I’m not sure if I can handle more,
In order to make it to twenty four,
Perhaps we’ll just have to wait and see.

Boom-tish! You’ve been an amazing audience.