Tagged.

So Vindicated hit me with a tag for that whole "letter to your 16 year old self thing" and I believe it's been years since I was last compelled to take part in one of these memes. How dare you! Thinking back to 16 makes me so depressed because I can barely remember that far back. I've decided to be sporting (despite not knowing the rules) so here goes.

You know that feeling that you get? When you look back at your 13 year old-self? And want to slap her silly? That does not fade. You will constantly want to go back in time and roundhouse kick some sense into your past self. Something tells me that we will always feel like this no matter.

Where should I start?

16 is a monumental year for you. First off, that brain aneurysm that Ammi will supposedly die of? No fear, that wasn't an aneurysm and she's actually still alive. You will however carry the emotional trauma of that and the fall out from her illness around for a long time. Actually both you and Aiya do, and in typical fashion deal with it in completely opposite ways. You both survive. Next year will sort of suck though, not going to lie. You decide that you're going to completely rebel against everything and become a serious pain in the ass. Like for real. You break your parents' heart by turning against religion, God and the institutionalised church, but they both survive. Despite the turmoil so do you. Your relationship with them drastically changes, but that's to be expected.

You feel stifled. Believe me. This feeling NEVER GOES AWAY. You will always feel suffocated you also believe that life will change once you get out of your tiny shit school and meet some new people. Fact: Life still sucks and all those friends you labeled as being "circumstantial," (just your friends because there are no other options) actually turn out to be the best friends you will ever have in life. You stay close to them through your undergraduate degrees, med school, law school, teachers college. You name it. You will be a bridesmaid and hate every moment of it, but you suck it up and do it. Then they start having babies, (which yes, even now freaks you out) and you have no idea what to do with these small creatures, but as they start getting older and you see flashes of their parents in their faces you realise that your past nomadic life may well be in the past because you're actually around to see this shit happen.

Yeah, you know that whole traveling thing? It dogs you man, all your life and you totally embrace it. You travel, a lot (your goal of living and working in two countries on every continent is right on track). And you experience all sorts of fantastic things. That drive to live in another country out of a suitcase sort of wanes eventually, but never dies! You start to realise how much you're missing at home. With that said, the time you spent working at an NGO in Sri Lanka? Good on you. Sometimes you'll wonder wtf you're doing, but stick with it. If anything it gives you a chance to know your family and grandparents in Colombo on a level that would never have been possible before. Looking back you'll be happy about this because your grandfather does not live forever, you won't be full of regrets like aiya.

Speaking of Sri Lanka, you are blown away by the awesome people you meet while you're there (none of whom you work with or are related to hah). One of them will even move to Canada and ingrain himself in your life, the same way those friends from high school do. He becomes a common fixture at the Christmas dinner table, the guest bedroom and even gets exposed to Aiya's girlfriends too.

You become easier on the people around you and become much more accepting. This is a good thing because your social sphere also expands and your friends become an eclectic mix of strangeness. You will never attempt to gather them all in one place for this reason.

The best example of this is the monumental nerd that flies into your peripheral this year. You will ignore him. For years. And years. He will tutor your baby cousin in calculus and you won't know he exists until one Thanksgiving you're forced to roast 38 turkeys and have no other option than to speak to him. Go with it. He will irritate you, you will want to kill him, but give him a chance because he turns out to be nothing at all like you expected. He reads Wuthering Heights voluntarily and becomes slightly less nerdy because of your influence. In turn he becomes a place of calm and reasoning in the midst of much insanity for you. It also helps that he's deliciously good looking and most of the single females in your acquaintance are madly jealous.

The most important thing that you'll discover later in life is how to weed people out. This is pertinent to your well being. All those people who are on a crusade to save you from yourself? Good news! They'll mostly be gone by the time you hit your 3rd year of university. You stop feeling the need to explain yourself to people and being misunderstood isn't so bad because you stop caring. Life keeps going on and it's not that bad.

Unfortunately you're a bit hit and miss in the boy department. Most of your relationships fizzle out and die a pathetic death because you refuse to be changed. A douche will famously quote to you the third stanza from "Marching Bands of Manhattan" in an attempt to make you feel badly about yourself, but instead you will feel emboldened and kick him to the curb. This is a trend that continues with you. It is also awesome.

You are also still terribly verbose. We will stop now.

Annnnnnnnnd I tag Tiny Little Fascist and Curious Yellow.

Oi! Get off my lawn.

I feel old. Some uncharitable people would go as far as saying that I am old. With the increase in weddings and birth announcements amongst a slew of other cringe worthy life events I think I'm headed for my mid-mid-life crisis. Although I have a sneaking suspicion I've been battling that since I turned 21. I'm not grappling with any huge existential questions though. I just feel old. Literally old and creaky.

Friday night I was supposed to head out and while I was waiting for my ride I thought sprawling on the sofa would be an appropriate use of my time. Until I woke up at 1 am with a crick in my back and a strong desire to throw my PJs on and crawl into my very inviting bed. Hmm. You can guess the ending of that story. I have officially become that person who really can't be arsed to go out. My work peeps have been harassing me for weeks, fortunately my excuse of 'being a student' is fantastic and usually even makes them sympathetic. I'm not entirely sure what ruse I'll have to put forth once my courses wrap up. Oh. Who are we kidding. I'm going to be a student for life.

Speaking of work, there's been some positive movements on that front and although things are still being tweaked, I may be finding myself a more frequent guest at HQ. This means I'll eventually need to invest in corporate drone-wear. I've been seriously making an effort to expunge the student from my wardrobe and I think I've done well?

There hasn't been a jeans purchase since August 2008. Sneakers? My true besetting sin? Been able to keep that beast at bay as of May 2008. Going shopping sucks now. (I lie! Retail therapy how I love thee!) I'm on a pretty strict self imposed budget. Between my fees, textbooks and pathetic attempts at saving there isn't really much cash left for clothing or sensible shoe purchases. It's hard though! When I see shoes my first immediate impulse is to think 'wow, those would look fantastic with my jeans in X wash.' Then I need to remind myself, 'but they'll look like total ass with dress pants/a skirt/a dress.' In the ideal world I'd still get the shoes if only to wear them on casual Fridays.

There are stores that I don't even venture into anymore. I can't even trust myself to browse to see what I'm missing out on. It's too depressing. The only cold comfort I have is that even in my age appropriate attire teenagers still stop me to say they like what I'm wearing. I feel the need to point out that these are savvy dowtown dwelling teenagers, not suburban ones.

But after a little incident in class this evening I'm not so sure how discerning these kids really are. I popped over to the bookstore before class and was subsequently a bit early for my lecture (because I always over estimate the amount of time it'll take to get things done). While flipping through my book a sweet looking girl came through the door, smiled at me and sat down a few seats to my left. Apparently she registered late and this was her first day. She started asking me questions about the class, how big, how many assignments etc.

We veered off topic (surprise!) and started talking about music. That's when my fellow classmates started to trickle in. As the room filled up she stopped talking about K'naan and asked me if this class? Is it intro to first year research methods? To which I laughed a hearty laugh and informed her that she was not in the presence of undergrads. She scrutinised the class a bit more and said 'yeah, there's no way in hell that these guys were ever undergrads in any life. They look like professors.' With that scathing judgement she picked up her shiz and got the hell out of there fast.

The lesson I'm choosing to take away from this tale of misunderstanding is that I'm a hip old person. (But still old because most of my classmates are around my age add or subtract a year or three.) That's my story and I'm sticking to it.