Tisha's diary - being young

i've written a lot of stuff earlier...in my head. i did type one long back. 1
i dont know why i have chosen to type and store my words again. maybe because there is something on my mind now that is worth remembering later.
i am twenty now. a strange age isn't it? not a teen anymore, and yet so young. my parents refer to thirty-something people as "young". i wonder when one actually stops being young...forty? i have a professor who is forty-five...he is quite attractive.
anyway, the whole concept of not being a teen anymore is weird. i may not get away with immaturity anymore. what is funnier is that i have to think twice before referring to any grown-up guy as "uncle".

dada had this friend. he used to visit us often when dada was in the country. i was 13, he was 20. i loved being around him. he was a smart guy. i was a vivacious teen. he was probably like another big brother to me. and i never really ended up having a crush on him. he is still here. he works here somewhere, and has a 24 year old girlfriend. i would have called him every time i missed dada. but i see her frowning at me the very moment i go near the phone. it is weird. i have never met her. she does not know me either. i would not have thought twice if i were 13. i guess this is what is funny about being 20. you cannot be a sister to random grown-up guys. you are either a prospect or a threat. or maybe i am reading too much into being 20.

i do not miss school. i loved school. i detested the days when the teachers chose to ask us questions and make us stand if we could not answer, but i loved school in general. we were a bunch of 18 year olds when we finished school. there was a lot of grief all around. "i am going to miss you tisha" sobbed a classmate. she is probably on my orkut friend-list. i loved school. but i embraced college with such open arms that the grief of leaving school got lost in the excitement. i had called dada when i got through a couple of places. "i am going to study what i love. bol kon university ta better." he gave me some advice. (wait a minute, had i called him? maybe i had mailed him. either way, he did give me some advice) he was very busy. he had left when i was yet to spend three more years in school. he had left to study what he loved. i guess i had only one thing in common with him-we had both ended up studying what we loved. we had both not weighed the consequences of doing that-dada ended up going far away and being very busy. i ended up staying in my beloved room and being perpetually free to read as much as i liked.
having free time, like being young, is a relative concept. some housewives i know say they hardly have any free time, dada once said he keeps sundays free. i do not call him on sundays though. it is never a good idea to steal a busy man's free time.

if you ask me whether i feel 20, i'll say pretty much. i feel 20-or else i would not have felt the deep pangs of not being a teen anymore. dada had turned 20 in 2000. we had celebrated. i was a new teen. not 12 anymore, and yet so young...so very young. dada must have turned 27 with style...his birthday this year was on a sunday. i had wished him...i had mailed him an e-card. he must have used up some of his free time to view that and smile. i have travelled from 13 to 20 as he has done from 20 to 27. he has travelled faster. i have stayed put in my room-my dear old basement...so very young and so free that i still barely understand what i would do with my thoughts. perhaps when i just have sundays to deal with my mind, i'll stop thinking so much. i'll probably be 27 then...but i'll still be very young.

June 2007
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1 read Tisha's first entry here.