Growing Up!

Growing up is hard work. Because maturity has no end and it is better to concentrate on the journey. They say it is life’s cycle, you are born, you grow old and then you die. But I say, you are born, you grow up and then you die. There is a difference between growing old and growing up. It’s you who makes the difference. You decide whether you are going to grow up or you are just happy growing old. 
Reason, emotion, fact, and fallacy; the human brain processes all four. Decisions emerge. With each decision, people grow or not. The willingness to learn how to blend emotion with reason and make good decisions is a prerequisite for growth. To grow is to replace fallacy with fact and resist too-good-to-be-true illusions in order to prevent too-horrible-to-endure consequences.
Now the million dollar question. Am I growing up? I don’t have to go to my parents for pocket money anymore. That’s one thing. But apart from that have I really grown up? Am I capable enough to handle any situation? Am I strong enough to play parents to my parents? Do I know how to blend emotions with reasons? Or am I still too dependent on my parents, secretly knowing that they are there for me, to pull me through whatever deep shit I am in? 
Standing on such a difficult juncture when it’s time for me to take decisions and yet not quite knowing what to do because of years of habit, my parents being always there to advice, I find myself in a paralyzed state of mind.
My dad, my dearest dad, lies unconscious on the white hospital bed, his respiration controlled by the artificial ventilator. Do I be strong now, keep my cool and support my mom or do I give in to the panic, the grief and the uncertainty? I have a choice. Or do I? I get numb. My limbs would suddenly stop listening to my commands. I would give in to shudders. Then again I would gather my strength and go on normally. It’s the cycle of life indeed, me doing whatever my parents used to do earlier, playing the guardian of the house in crisis.
It’s one fascinating thing to grow up. I whine, lament and cry, “Why me? Why my dad? Why life is so unfair?” But that’s just life. And I realize for the first time in life that it’s time. It’s time for me to grow up. To finally become independent. Not only financially. But emotionally as well. Though it unsettles me a little, I think I am game for it.Follow me.