Well Hello 'ties!

It ends here, my teen days. I struggle to regurgitate my life experiences thus far, wondering yet again if I have reached milestones that should be reached come this day, for the 20th time.

Retrospection leaves me sullen because I feel like I have not done as much as I should have, tried as hard as I could have, pursued as far as I would have liked. Oft times I wish I were in another's shoe, living another's dream, climbing mountains, going places, creating fiction, crafting breathtaking art . . . anything I'm not.

If time machines are but a creative reverie, I would gladly place myself back in those times when I should have, or shouldn't have. I'd let experience work its miracle backwards, leaving me free from these nagging thoughts that "I should have" or "I could have".

Two decades may not be time enough to prove myself worthy of the world, of course. But yet in this course of my life now, I have met many who seem to carry the world in their hands, so seemingly accomplished. There is so much that hinders me from believing that I am already a woman. And still there is plenty to make me realize there is no place in the world for a childish NJ. A child at heart, perhaps, but not a child of sorts.

There is so much to learn, although I feel like I learn new things every now and then. Today, for instance, I learned that my silly insecurities of not being loved, and being under-appreciated is unfounded. There is love all around me, if only I'd learn to see it. And there is greatness in me, if only I'd learn to use it.

Well hello twenties. I shouldn't be scared of you, should I? As long as this youth blood courses through my veins, I shall seek for my place in this world, my place next to someone, my place in a future. 

This post calls for OAG's Generasiku. Same old same old perhaps, but the song breathes a fresh meaning for me as I grapple with my relatively new and more profound understanding of youth. Let the good (and bad) times roll!

p/s: Thank you for seeing me through my 20 years of life, no matter who you are and which phase of my life we have crossed paths. You wouldn't believe how much meeting each and every one of you have helped define a part of me. Arigatou. Xie xie. Syukran. Terima kasih daun keladi. Praise to the deity for allowing me such passage. Alhamduillah.