Be cool!

I don’t want to grow up.

I sat down yesterday and decided to figure out why I’d been feeling despondent for days. This is what I came up with – as mentioned earlier, the entire world is talking about a future that takes marriage for granted. Now, I have nothing against the institution in general. But I resent being given cues all over the countryside to think about it. Because at the smallest cue, think about it I will. And that disturbs me, because I feel that while I am aware that it something that is inevitable, it is too early for me to be actively thinking about it.

The problem with thinking about it is that one tends to make too many assumptions. One tends to try and construct a mental image about the future, and creating images is always dangerous. Being prepared for the baggage that marriage brings along with it is one thing, but using the imagination in any manner is treading on sticky ground. Quite a far cry from what I might’ve said a few years ago, when having illusions was a good thing, a stepping stone to making them come true. The problem is that all these cues I get – from married people, people about to get married, people fighting to buy time, people fighting for the right of free will, people gamely relinquishing that right, people unsure about what they might do with that free will even if they had it, people torn between realism and wishful thinking, people among family, friends, casual acquaintances, people in movies et al – are downright depressing. They don’t give my childhood delusions about the magic of togetherness much encouragement, instead, they all point towards the responsibilities/compromises/routines of togetherness on the pleasant end of the spectrum, and unhappiness/resignation/frustration on the unpleasant end. I feel jaded, and resent the fact that all these cues are being thrown at me with such gay abandon. I am indifferent to where they come from, or who they come from. Ah well, I guess the silver lining is that I might feel more equipped to deal with the emotional aspect of marriage. The not-so-silver lining is that I am going to have to put my mind through yet another training session to accept only those cues that don’t disturb me, and think pleasant thoughts. And teaching myself is bound to be a bit of a strain, because I’m quite a difficult student, really!