Old? Or, not yet!

I am officially 31 years old now. In a way, I have officially put one foot in the old age. At least as per the world, this age is not that young and for most, this time signifies the beginning of mid life crisis. But, why don't I actually feel that the prime youthful days are over? Sometimes, I still feel like a kid. Hell, sometimes I even behave like one. I still do not think that being practical all the time is a virtue. Instead, it is an impediment. People often say, grow up, be realistic, be practical and what not. But I still do not want to be any of those most of the time. There is something which Will Smith said in an interview and resonated word to word with me. He said "Being realistic is the most common path to mediocrity." I feel, that is terribly true. By any stretch of imagination, I am not saying that I am not mediocre. I am just an average guy who is growing older, or let me say wiser, rather than old, to keep myself in denial. But, if everyone were realistic, do you think man would have invented airplanes, or gone to the moon? Would the Tatas and the Ambanis have dreamt of creating such huge businesses. Would Sachin Tendulkar have ever thought of playing at international level at 16 years of age? These are but the extremes. I have another example from my and my family's very normal and average lives. Never in his whole life, my father would have thought about owning a house in Mumbai, if he had been realistic. It simply was out of reach. The time he had booked that flat, he did not have any disposable savings, because both his sons were studying and within couple of years, both would be in college, which we all know how expensive it can be. But, my mother pushed him to book the flat and to figure out rest later. He shed his realistic outlook and went ahead. Result, he now owns a flat in Mumbai. No matter how small or modest it is, it is still a huge deal for a middle class man in government service. So, if I, without being very realistic and practical, so as to say, am still an average guy, imagine what I would become if I became realistic and practical. I won't even be able to do half the things I am able to do currently, and I am not ready to live that life. Yes, I am unrealistic, impractical, impulsive in many things. I do things if my heart says yes to and not because the mind says so. I do not over analyze things if I have to even buy something. If I can buy something and I like it, I just buy it. No analysis, or comparisons, whatsoever.
So that brings me again to the point, why I do not feel old. At least, not yet. Things which I loved as a kid, I still love them. I have not grown out of any of those things. Not in 31 years. Even the simplest of things. My mother told me once that, even as a three year old, when she used to take me out in the evenings for a stroll in the colony campus, the moment I saw the big boys playing cricket, I would stand right bang in the middle of the pitch and create a scene about playing. I would not budge till one of the boys made me hold a bat and helped me hit a few balls. Even today, if I know I would get to play, anywhere, anytime, where I can reach, I will leave everything and be there. And I have. I have missed doctor's appointments, parties, trips, classes and many other things if they happened to clash with a sure shot match I was supposed to play in.
I loved, pure chocolate since as far back as I can remember. Pure means, not mixed with anything, no nuts, no fruits no nothing but chocolate. I like dry fruits separately, but I hate it when they are put in chocolates. I hate it to my core, and I hated it even as a kid. Even today, I do not shy away from filling a bowl with chocolate pieces and relishing them slowly, just like I did as a kid. Similarly with milk. I loved milk pure, not mixed with anything else, and that is how it is even today. Even after experiencing so many different forms and flavors of milk, I truly love only pure milk, hot or cold, with just sugar.
One of the other very silly things was, I loved to eat raw bournvita out of a bowl. Not mixed with milk. I still love it and still eat it almost every alternate day. Same with jam. I can, and many times, still eat jam with a spoon out of the bottle.
My earliest memory is that of me being sent to nursery class. There were chairs of different colors for the kids there. I loved and only sat on a particular yellow chair. After the class time ended, and mom would come to pick me up, I would hold that chair and ask her to take the chair with us. Even today, if I see a yellow chair, I need to sit on it. Yellow chair still has a special place in my heart and I do not think that to be stupid. At least not yet.
I always thought, people are supposed to grow out of these things when they 'grow up'. So, although I am becoming old, I do not feel that yet.
I am not married, do not have couple of kids, haven't traveled the world, still am unsatisfied with the kind of job I am doing and want to do more. All in all, still not settled. It is not that I do not want to get married or am deliberately not getting married. I want to and want to experience that life too but few complications (which, by the way, are not because of me or created by me) are delaying that.  I want to see, why, especially the guys, crib about getting married. Some crib jokingly but some seriously about how different it becomes and why they cannot do certain things and how they are not completely free anymore etc etc. Well, if you think that is tough, try being unmarried at 31 and stay in India, where, sometimes the sole aim of living seems to be to get married and have kids. For people, their parents and everyone in the so called society. At this age, you wont have any single/unmarried friends left who can join you on trips or for going out just to have fun if you want to. They have a family, and rightly so, plan accordingly. Then you cannot join them. Trust me, it is not a happy or good feeling to be a lone single person among a group of families, even if they do not feel awkward and totally welcoming, you yourself will not feel good. You cannot go on guy trips, because there aren't any guys left, all have become family men.
I can be realistic and just go ahead and marry anyone, have a 'life' and 'family'. But, I cannot. Simply because I cannot get married to anyone else except to the one I want to. What parents and others do not understand is, if I have not grown out the very simple and stupid things of childhood, how can I be expected to grow out of a person I love. And since I know that, I know that if I become realistic, it won't be much of a 'life' for me.
So, I refuse to be old already. I recall a song "18 till I die". The number in my age will increment at its own pace, but from within, I would still be "18 and going on 55" as one line in the song says.
So I took this opportunity for the first time to wish MYSELF a happy birthday too and am happy to be growing wiser, not older yet, only wiser.