Homebody Discovers a Lost Blog Post

Was just deleting some old files when I came across this. I hope you enjoy. No, there aren’t any more unpublished posts. Hope all of you are doing well!

I’m growing old. This bothered me five minutes ago. But now it doesn’t. Here’s why.

So this year I turn thirty. I am told that thirty is the new twenty. This is a sweet little lie because even homebody is not that bad at math. Not anymore. Thirty is the new thirty. (Ms. Soares will be so proud of me; she once banged my head against my desk and then hers against the wall when I once wrote 2=3 as the answer to an algebraic formula and delightedly demonstrated my conclusion to her at the end of the period.) Fact is if I was living a hundred years ago I would be ‘on the shelf’. I’d be dead in a decade; while today I have about forty more years to go, if all goes well. So I’ve lived almost half my life – unless I live to be eighty or ninety. In any case, there’s no point speculating. The fact is: homebody is ageing.

Age, for me, has manifested itself on my body. I used to be flat. Blissfully sexless, which was so comfortable because I didn’t have to wear a dupatta everywhere. But now, I’m bootilicious, which is not a dream come true because I want to hold on to that pre-teen anorexic look that represented the old days for me. It made me feel comfortable, that I was still that little girl whose father was still alive, who watched Captain Planet and ran mad over the house, not worrying about thunder thighs and support bras and other items of clothing to make sure not everything flung itself all over the place with every step I took. Now, I have to make sure I’m more, shall we say, contained.

And the thing about weight gain that most gets you down is that you don’t fit into all those pretty clothes that hang in your closet, waiting patiently to be worn. You could wear them six months ago, but hormones kicked in, metabolism kicked the bucket and gravity started its magic. You begin to spread and spread until one day, your clothes suddenly go taut on you; despite the fact that you’re holding your breath and sucking your tummy in until you burst a kidney. And there’s that ominous ripping sound when you sit down.

So, five minutes ago, I cleaned my closet and took out the outfits that I hadn’t worn for a year, because I was waiting to be thin enough to wear them. I thought there would be three, maybe four.

There were TEN outfits. Beautiful ones. With the most exquisite hand and needlework. And I’d only worn them once and then kept them aside for ‘special occasions’. Royal blues, reds, greens and maroons. And oh. That one beige, glittering masterpiece of chiffon and silk.

I lay them on the bed and examined them. I would probably be able to fit into them if I exercised diligently for a month. But I had been telling myself this for over a year. My body was changing, the pre-teen look wasn’t coming back. Ever.

But as I stared at these outfits, something clicked. I took them off their hangers and folded them, lovingly. And I put them in a bag and gave them to my cook, whose son is getting married next month. He took them stoically, he doesn’t like being in a position where he needs help. So I kind of sidled up and put them next to him and told him he should take the ones he could use. He took them all.  

And five minutes ago, I checked my closet, which is emptier than it has ever been. There are no longer countless clothes; each kameez hangs solitary and proud. And suddenly, I feel deliciously free – empty but full of possibility. I have aged and this is my new body and those clothes were for an old me. There’s more of me, physically yes, but also in terms of the experiences and tidbits of wisdom that I like to think I’ve gained. The old me had a lot of hopes and dreams which were no more. The new me has new hopes and new dreams which need some more breathing space.

My ten year old self was precocious, my twenty year old self was uncertain. But at thirty, I’d like to think that I’ve settled into who I am. Which means that I can truly BEGIN to live life on my terms: terms where I have space, where I am independent and where I can breathe freely and deeply,  just like the clothes in my closet. . After all, homebody just created space for who she is about to become. Which is terribly, terribly exciting, don’t you think?