old

it's december already. and when january comes along, then it's another long and anticipated wait once again for september, the month when i grow a year older. this year i'm 23, then next year i'll be 24. then when i graduate i'll be almost 25. basically around the time people start to talk about more serious and worldly stuffs like marriages, buying a flat, careers, cars, travelling etc.

it makes me shudder sometimes to think of such things. i'm still a youthful 23, yet conversations among friends have always revolved around these adult issues. it is not talking about it that is scary, it's the technicalities involved that makes it scary (like newly weds should buy cheaper flats so that they shouldn't burden themselves with unnecessary debts, or what age to get married at, or whether is it worth to get a 1st or 2nd hand car etc). we talked about such things when i met up with my jc friends days ago. haha. and facebook is giving me endless reminders through photos after photos of weddings or engagements or photos of their newborns.

when you're 21 and your peers are 21 too during that year alone almost everyone will have some sort of a big 21st birthday bash to mark that so-called important chapter in his/her life. once you're past that age then welcome to the adult world i guess. now i'm only 23 and the rate at which i'm going to my friend's weddings is picking up as the years pass by. of course 23 is considered a bit late for malays to get hitched i guess, but let's not get carried away with that point. haha.

today i went to a relative's wedding in a long while - and the bride is only 24 i think. and poor me is only into his first year of his own stalinist-style 10 year plan to get married. haha. i mostly only worry about not having enough moolahs to ensure that settling down in the future will not leave me saddled with huge debts. i know well enough love cannot conquer all, and definitely not financial problems.

just now i was going through my notes and clearing some old stuffs and inevitably i will always have to dig up some old artifacts from my glorious glorious past. like my pink sec 2 music file. and a folder full of musical scores. and old hari raya and birthday cards, letters and small gifts and trinkets and what not. looking through all these stuffs does remind me how far i have come and how old i have grown, especially in the past 10 years.

10 years ago, i was still in secondary school, wearing those tight and hot white shorts with socks like thierry henry's socks almost up to the knees. 10 years on i've made it to university, more than halfway through my course in school.

what about 10 years on, when i'll be 33?

a) happily hitched already with 2 kids (at least)?
b) only getting ready to get married the coming year?
c) still bogged down with financial issues and having to delay marriage till probably 40?
d) decided that marriage isn't worth the hassle and thinking that serving the parents would reap much more dividends?
e) actually d isn't accurate - rather thinking that singlehood is more worth living?

options a to d assumes that i have actually found THE one, or at least by around my mid-20s or early 30s i'm ready to settle down with THE one. haha. scary stuffs man. i wonder how people just a few years older than me face up to all these issues.

together we will move the clouds to brighter days.