A rambling post...

Being at this particularly weird age, young yet not completely carefree...independent yet held by many invisible strings, is confusing indeed. I am to be responsible and grown up yet not a stuffy individual. How do I balance all this out? I live on my own, yet I donot have the freedom (or perhaps the desire) to be an isolated island. But I shall never ever be the bubbling life and soul of a group. It requires just too much effort and my inherent laziness revolts at the idea of such hardship. Does it always have to be extremes...this or that...always a matter of choices? Also I have been wondering whether I have really changed over a period of time, over a series of experiences or do I just like to pretend so?

Living on a campus as beautiful as this is an experience that I shall cherish forever, with the many blossoming friendships and the chance for personal growth. It is entirely up to me how closely inter-twined I wish to let these bonds become...keep everyone at arm's length or let them into my heart. Perhaps it is the many hours spent in company and the unending conversations that build up this impression of closeness...it is perhaps all a mirage. Everybody is finally looking out for themselves...no one cares when it comes to the crunch. Each person is trying to reach for their best under the given circumstances. That is not to say that anybody is out to hurt you specifically but someone else's best may be the worst for you.

Is that too pessimistic...cynical? I would like to think it is a journey towards realism. Perhaps that's all growing up means...that you dream but know that dreams hardly ever come true and that magic shall only be for yourself...for your imagination...it does not exist in the real world. Out here all anybody cares for is the end result...have you succeeded or failed? The journey never matters.

I have been told over and over again for quite some time now that I am too trusting, too impressionable, too optimistic and lost in my own world, my dreams, my beliefs and I would just laugh it off and think that people were not ready to look at all the beautiful things out there. But do any of these apparently magical, beautiful things matter? Are they even worth noticing? All these years I have been a naive young fool to believe that it is the process, the people you meet along the way, the million different hues you chance upon, the actual journey that matters the most. But then there are times when you wholeheartedly doubt all that you have trusted your entire life. Disillusionment is good, because it lets you pause and think. Take a break, learn many things all over again just with a different perspective.

I guess all these thoughts, doubts, beliefs, questions and answers are always there fluttering within me. Sometimes a few rush to the fore, sometimes others do but do I ever get anything new from the world or am I constantly regurgitating the same old questions and just trying to come up with different combinations of answers? What is one supposed to do when melancholy strikes with such vengeance for no apparent reason? Even the crashing rains and the thunder and lightening outside cannot wash this mood out. It has become a constant companion lately, sucking the joy out of the little everyday happenings that I used to go ga-ga over. Do I even want to let go? It is a different experience...to not be constantly happy...how boring that seems now. May the questioning continue...mayhaps this then is to be the new phase.