I let my cats out and only one came back tonight. Speaking of letting the cat out, I'm going to be 32 this year. I remember turning 30...that particular milestone of a 'westernized' person's life. (I suppose in some african tribe, that milestone would've been 13 or 18 or something.) I was in Port Dickson with Farhana...contemplating our lives as now officially, "30-something" women. We stayed in this really nice double-storey apartment facing the sea, and I was half-scared and half surrendered to the fact. I've never been 30 before, I told myself. Which was a very silly thing to say because I've never been any age until after I've spent an entire year being that age. Then, like now, I have no love interest nor sky-rocketing career.
Age is just a number, really. But it's fun scaring ourselves with physical markers of life. Now that I'm completely over the shock that I'm over 3 decades old (and alive, I survived being 30) I have learned to appreciate what age brings with it. I know this is probably not true for a lot of people. They just get older and more of all their bad habits fossilizing.
In my 20s, I was reeling from the 'programming' of my childhood and adolescent experiences. Did I mention to you one of my central philosophies these days - "That we are all, essentially, products of our programming." What I mean by that is, there is no such thing as "Who am I?".
I suspected something like that was true because I remember being 24 and in the middle of a really painful relationship, and I heard a voice say, "Separate You from your Ego-Self." I was walking to my car, every ounce of my body filled with emotional pain, having to drag myself, one foot in front of another so I don't run out into traffic in a suicidal attempt - and I heard that voice telling me (not in words, though) that I am NOT the sum of the things happening to me up til that point in life. That I have the capacity to be a very loving, creative, nurturing, strong and decisive being that can protect and inspire others.
I created an ID that night, to try and make sense of that message. My ID was called "Defeating my Ego." I didn't know who or what my Ego was and how I was going to defeat it. When I closed my eyes to see whether I could see this "Ego" thing, I saw a big grey and black shadow, like irregular rings of dark, energy, pushing me in from all directions. It was a big, shapeless, phantom-like thing. It filled me with fear because it was blocking clarity, understanding, love and joy from me, thus creating doubt, fear, insecurities, delusions and anger.
But I was sure the answers were going to come to me - in how to recognize which is me and which is this Ego thing. I just needed to put the message out there for myself, by giving it an avatar in this world. So I made that Yahoo ID! Fast-forward to the present, of course my Ego still exists but it's not a big looming thing, it's a regular sideshow that I have tamed.
Anyway, my 20s were a little more than a complicated, protracted, drama of my childhood and adolescent years. Crippling and painful insecurities, hurts and drama. Except for the part where I did the most sensible thing ever and listened to myself for once and went and had a child, my 20s were nothing more than a complicated web spun from all the causes of pain and insecurity of childhood and adolescence - protracted adolescence or arrested development all at once, if you must.
I lived a constant theme of pain and insecurity and all the other negative things that are a result of that theme; anger, resentment, jealousy, bitterness, possessiveness, self-hurt, selfishness. (OK, I really wasn't that bad.) But my 30s marked a liberation of all that was me. It marked the completion of my rebirth. Since the day I heard the voice telling me to separate my Ego from me, I have been going through what really feels like a birthing process. The beginning of that stage was very acute and painful. There were days where I was paralysed by my own pain and could not get out of bed. That was also a good period for my weight - I lost close to 20kg which was good for my looks though :D.
Anyway, I knew I had to relocate and find my 'centre' if I was to survive that dark period.
By my late 20s, my new life was beginning to 'show'. And by 30, I have been reborn. I think I died somewhere between 23 and 27. Like, a real spiritual death. And that has been the greatest thing about being 30 - to know that I am empowered, that I am not a sum of the things that happened to me as a child and adolescent and young adult, that I am not a sum of the mistakes I made. I am not the sum of the programming I digested.
My 30s also showed me what confidence and peace within oneself feels like. I am not a constant vessel of Zen, of course. But at least I've tasted constant and consistent experiences of confidence and peace. Age also shows me that if we do not decide on a daily basis what sort of person or life we want for ourselves, and to be consistent in wanting those, we will end up a sum of all our bad habits and regrets.
To be a woman and to feel completely happy and liberated as a woman, to feel confident as a person and a mother, to feel a great sense of security about oneself, to like oneself - that is such a good feeling. To have many moments where you feel like you're exactly where you should be at that exact time. To have a sense that you can accept and like yourself, including the mistakes you make and the things you're ignorant of. To forgive yourself as a second nature. To greatly reduce feelings of misplaced guilt, to be free from a perpetual sense of depressiveness and sorrow.
I would've never have dared to imagine, prior to being 30, being able to be a person who feels so happy inside, even when there is not always joy, fun and laughter in my life.
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