Growing up

It had happened before. In fact, it has been happening all his life. Some people call it growing up and are awed by the miracle of this constant transformation. He plainly didn’t get it, or their apparent hypocrisy. Who in their sane minds would want to let go of a beautiful thing, for something so strange, the unknown, that only time would reveal, just a tad bit late.

It started even before his eyes had seen light. A mere egg and sperm had created life and set the wheels in motion. When he was fully formed, which now seemed a bitter joke, he was brought into this world, to face the vagaries outside the warmth and comfort of the womb.

Gradually, his limbs became stronger and he could move. It used to be easier and more enjoyable when people around him would do his bidding. Now they cheered for him to get up and take his first steps; people and their demands, he had to put in effort. In a year, they needed more than a pointed finger and a high pitched mumble. He had to learn to control his tongue and his wind pipe, to make strange sounds, which he later learnt, that only a part of the world’s population would understand. All his endeavors in learning and modulating his body, and there was more to come.

Eventually, he would start growing bigger; his body would grow out of clothes and his feet out of the shoes within weeks. He loved those clothes, and those shoes; but he couldn’t use them anymore. He would start losing his teeth and new ones would take their place - crooked and painful. Soon he would need braces to fix them. Nature was not the only force in his transformation; cosmetology and conformity were as much a part.

After several years of small transformations, he would wonder why he didn’t come with a manual. Now he had started noticing drastic changes. Some parts of his body seemed to grow plump. The distribution of hair on his body had changed so much. It was not just physiological, mind you. He now craved for new toys, the ones he had no interest in before. He craved attention and attraction from people whose existence he had once barely acknowledged. His thoughts and ideas would change; it was confusing, the pressure, the identity, and opinions, which would just hang in the air.

“When will this change ever stop?” he would ask himself. But he knew better. Once he had been a baby, an adolescent, even a teenager. In his middle age now, he knew that his body and mind would never stop changing. In fact, he had only seen what growing up was. He prepared himself for wearing down- another transformation they hadn’t warned him about.