How old are you, really?

"What do you want to be when you grow up?" - I remember being asked that a lot when I was a kid and I would reply with whatever fascinated me that day. On some days it was an astronaut and on some others, it was an IFS officer. There were even occasions, although rare, when I would demand to be referred to as the queen. I am the youngest in my family so nobody ever took me seriously.

I spoke to my cousin recently, after long. We updated each other on everything and then reminisced over our summers together. It would be him, his twin brother and me - getting bullied by my sister while playing video games and eating lychees. Both of them would break all our toys to figure how they worked and teach me how to make polyhedrons out of paper. While looking back on these things, it hit me that I'm almost grown-up. The stick-figures in my head went berserk.

I think my cousin sensed this and attempted to assuage my misery. "A person only grows up twice in life. Once when he gets a job and once when he gets married", he said and continued "So technically, even I have until a few years to half grow-up, when I start my PhD" he laughed. He is really smart, researching in Physics on a top secret thing. And yet, he is so nonchalant about it, like there is still so much he needs to do.

I tried to figure where I fit in. I have a job but I don't think it counts because I love it. I work really hard to get better at it everyday. It's more like I'm learning, and not so much like a job. Even that is so many things in one - I write, I code, I look at paintings and I talk to awesome people about all sorts of things.

Then I do other things. Like walk to places and play my ukulele, tame my stick-figures and pretend that millions of people read my blog, watch science videos and balance on the fence of reality and fiction. And I give them, everything I've got. How am I ever going to grow up at this rate?

I remember when I was in my first year of undergrad. I would camp at the library for hours while everyone else was at the work-space on their assignments. I made webpages for picture-quizzes and Android applications for the blind while others would be into competitive coding. I started a green-club and others would say "You have way too much free-time! Why don't you just work on your grades or do things that matter?"

I guess that's my problem. I have a different opinion about what matters. I don't get why everyone is obsessed with routine and doing grown-up stuff. Don't get me wrong, I do the important things. When I say grown-up stuff, I mean doing stuff with a grown-up attitude. I know some really cool older people who try so many things everyday! They're fascinated by the machinations of everything. They're not afraid to admit if they don't know something and they're constantly learning. That's the opposite of grown-up, it's being invincible!

I don't know if it's much, but that's who I want to be. To do different things and see how I feel about them. And then do more of them, if I like them. To have different conversations, see different things and break things open to know how they work. To be curious and eventually crack the magician's code. They say curiosity killed the cat. I think the lack of it kills humans, everyday. When I'm old, I want to look back at swollen albums, not mundane sheets of blank paper.
Actually, I don't want to grow old.

There is this part in The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath where Esther describes life as a fig tree. When I Googled to quote, I found this beautiful Zen Pencils representation of it and I thought it was worth sharing. 

"What do you do?", people ask me now. I smile cockily and say "I'm a ninja".