I remember reflecting about growing older at various milestones apart from birthdays. Come to think of it we are almost on birthday week ;) Like when I was finishing school I wondered how it would be being an older college-going person. When I was finishing what we call college at 20 I remember wondering if I was old, now that I would be working. I remember in one of the postgrad courses I did a bit later, probably I was 22ish, there was a 30-year old girl in it. I don't remember my exact thinking then but I remember sort of being shocked at how old she was... the 30-year old! I am starting to think young people at that age including myself—though I was quite reflective in general—have something of an arrogance that is perhaps the privilege of youth. It seems like an obvious fact now but it didn't seem then that we are all marching towards old age and eventual decay. It's a hard cold brute fact. One would think if we are all in it together in a way that we are not in together for anything else... it's our basic shared mortality or materiality in a sense... then this is something we should find some communion in instead of being a reason for division or arrogance. And yet the attitude I seemed to have then is the general attitude of youth, and I sometimes feel amused thinking that some day they may also look back the way I am doing now and wonder what the fuss was about. We are all going to catch up with each other sooner than later... there's no stalling it.

The first time you see a grey hair is probably when you well and truly come to confronting the hard brute fact of life; it was for me and might be different things for others. Unlike when I was moving from school to college or college to work, this is not a social construct in mine or people’s heads. It is a real sign. It makes you realize the naiveté of thinking you were anywhere near old in your early 20s... Like someone said, youth is wasted on the young....! :)

Maybe because I’m nearing my birthday or maybe it's just a part of the reflections that come more often as you grow more and more older... I am thinking of how we associate so much of ourselves with our bodies, the way we look, the way we present... and I wonder how much of who I am is invested in or conveyed by my body. When I really think about it I realise it’s not much really. We all anchor our identity to different concepts or parts of ourselves, and I suppose my identity is rooted in my mind than my body. Of course this is not to deny that my mind has linkages to my body in terms of overall health but I’d like to think my identity or who I am comes from my mind, what I think, how I think, how I engage with the world, what values I hold, what attitudes I have and what not. Not in how I look or how I present myself to the outside world as a plain or pure bodily figure. I suppose what it means for me is that growing older must mean a positive in the terms with which I associate my identity. I am not the person I was ten years ago and in a very good way. I have grown and my body in its weather-beaten condition probably cannot attest to the positive aspect of the growth, but when we project ourselves into the world, we project more than what we look like as a body, we project the whole person. And it is a matter of pride if the whole person does have much to show for growth. Probably it is this whole person or the way we have travelled to become this whole person and the long way left to us to become even more of the person we want to become is what we need to focus on.