Celebrating New Beginnings
Today is விநாயகர் சதுர்த்தி /Vinayagar Sathurthi. It’s the Hindu God Vinayagar’s birthday. Most Hindus pray to Vinayagar before they start on something new. This means when you get a new house, you perform a Ganapathi Homam before you move in to bless the house and ward off negativity. You most likely have a Vinayagar idol in your altar – my grandmother gave my mum a Vinayagar painting for her altar when she got married, which has followed us from the small house we had in our village back in India to the house we are living in right now. In the temple, you pray to Ganesh before you pray to the other Gods. Ganesh is the God you turn to during new beginnings and the God of wisdom and intelligence.
On this day, I find myself thinking a lot about beginnings. In 2 months, I’ll be turning 27. 3 years shy of 30. I still feel like I turned 20 very recently. And in the blink of an eye, I seem to be so close towards the next decade in my life. I have never celebrated my birthdays in a grand manner. The one age I was genuinely excited about was 15 – I was extremely obsessed with the number 15 and turning 15 at one point in my life. God knows why. (Maybe I didn’t make it past 15 in a previous life?) But even then, I still didn’t want a party. We cut a small black forest cake at home and had a slice each. That’s all.
The only age I have considered celebrating is my 30th. With a big bash because hey. It’s 30! The big three o! That’s a big deal, right? Even as recently as last year, I thought at 30, I would be settled in life, I would be married, maybe have a kid and a house. I thought I would have made the full transition into adulthood and I would be this amazing woman who can celebrate her life. Or at least that’s what I thought.
The reality is, I just switched careers at 26. I’m making nowhere near as much as I used to, don’t even get me started about the part about a partner and a house and I no longer know if I want to have a big 30th bash. You know what I find really odd? How okay I am with the idea of not celebrating my 30th.
And after some really intense thinking and reflection (read late night mulling), I understood that the reason the number has lost its meaning can be summarized by this quote:
“Remember when you wanted everything you currently have?”
In my “I Kinda Want to Adult” post, I talked about how adulthood is terrifying because of the exponential growth that happens in our life during this period from teenage years. And I have come to realize how much I have grown since, and how many new chapters I have started, and continue to start, in my life.
The ultimate goal for teenage me was to be bold and brave and teenage me thought that meant looking and acting like Lara Croft (Angelina Jolie’s Lara Croft because that was who we had back in my teenagehood). Now as an adult I realize I am a bit bold and brave and looking like Lara Croft has nothing to do with it.
Teenage me would in no way have been able to stay strong for her family for the two years her dad was in and out of the hospital. Adult me did. Teenage me wouldn’t even have DARED to stand her ground and argue with two uniformed men who stopped her family at an Indian airport to blatantly ask for a “fine”. Adult me got us out of it and made sure we never paid a cent as a “fine”. I still think of it as one of my most badass moments in my life. Scratch that. The most badass moment in my life. Looking back, teenage me would have probably looked at adult me for some sort of inspiration. I mean, adult me does deadlifts. Teenage me didn’t even know what that was.
When that quote crossed my mind, I realized that I had idealized the age of 30. I thought I would have started a new chapter in my life, society’s picture-perfect version of an adult – house, career and a family. But the thing is, does it matter at what age these things come to you? Does it mean you can’t celebrate your life for all the other things that you have done and the other beginnings? Like a career switch or friendships or recovery from trauma? And that’s the reason I have suddenly lost interest in celebrating my 30th. I have finally realized that I have started a new chapter in my life – a business, and a career I like. I’m finally showing some semblance of self-esteem with my body. I realized how much I have grown, age aside. I would still very much like to have those things that I described of hoping to have at 30, but I’m not attaching it to a date or age anymore. I think of them as things for “someday”. I’m not saying I’m completely over it, I do fret now and then that I don’t have those elements in my life, but I think I’ll be okay if I don’t have them at the age of 30 like I previously thought I wanted.
Seeing the things that I do have now, I’m starting to feel eager about the things I can have one day. For my new beginnings. I realize there’s time for everything in life, especially for so many more “first times”. And maybe those are the things I should be celebrating instead. Not necessarily my age. And maybe that’s exactly what Vinayagar Sathurthi is about – the celebration of new beginnings and the wisdom and growth that comes with it.
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