Today, I turned 20 years old
Hi! Today I turned twenty. Instead of making a big fuss about my birthday, I unplugged from the internet, turned in a college assignment, picked up a couple of things at the market, and basically contemplated change, connections, and the days ahead.
Hello there. It’s me, Arsh.
Today is sixth of june in the year 2026. I turned twenty years old.
If you are reading this ten or twenty or maybe even forty years from now i want you to remember the world you were living in when this was written. this was the era of algorithms and short attention spans and artificial intelligence and endless scrolling and digital validation. this was the era of people being connected to thousands while understanding almost nobody. everyone was online.
Today I chose to disappear. for the first time in years i celebrated my birthday by isolating myself. a few days before my birthday i deactivated my instagram account. i blocked whatsapp from accessing the internet. i did not want notifications. i did not want messages. i did not want birthday wishes. i did not want to reply with thank you just because society expected me to. i wanted silence. and i got it.
Today I realised something. i do not miss social media. i do not miss notifications. i do not miss conversations that exist only because people are bored. i do not miss people remembering my existence only because a date on a calendar reminded them.
Throughout the day people still wished me. classmates wished me. people in my mess wished me. someone even posted my photo on their status(i got to know from another person). i responded coldly. maybe colder than necessary. but i could not bring myself to care. the strange thing is that i was not sad. i was calm. a very deep calm that almost felt like emptiness wearing a peaceful mask.
For years i have been trying to understand people. trying to understand friendships. trying to understand why connections disappear the moment life becomes heavy and difficult. when life was heavy most people were not there. when life became slightly easier suddenly everyone wanted a place in it. i do not hate them. i simply do not understand the value of maintaining connections that do not survive difficult times. perhaps that sounds arrogant. perhaps it sounds immature. or perhaps it is simply exhaustion. the kind of exhaustion that settles into your bones and makes everything feel a little more gray.
Today, I found myself drifting back to a state i once entered during class eleven. a state where i stopped talking to people unless necessary. a state where i minded my own business. a state where pleasure and attention and popularity and social validation lost their importance. back then people thought something was wrong with me. maybe nothing was wrong. maybe i was simply reducing noise. maybe i was trying to hear my own thoughts again.
There is a quote from classroom of the elite that stayed with me for a long time. all people are nothing but tools. i never fully agreed with it. but i understood where it came from. the older i get the more i realize that relationships are often built on convenience and timing and shared circumstances. very few survive beyond that. today i asked myself a difficult question. if a connection does not help me become who i need to become why am i holding onto it. i still do not have an answer. perhaps future me does. perhaps future me has already given up looking for one.
Today was not completely empty though. i submitted an assignment. i went to the market. i bought a belt. i bought a cap. i bought two full pants because most of my old ones had started tearing apart. the quality was not great but they will do their job. i also bought two t shirts for my elder brother. i will give them to him in july. out of everything i bought today those shirts meant the most. they felt like the only real thing in a day full of blurry hours.
I also ate pani puri and chaat from a roadside stall. nothing special. just another ordinary moment inside an ordinary day. the kind of moment that does not ask anything from you. the kind of moment that does not expect you to perform happiness.
There is another thought i want future me to remember. humans always change over time. you can either accept that or cry over it. both will change your life. i do not know who i will become. i do not know which people will remain. i do not know which dreams will survive. all i know is that change is coming whether i welcome it or not. it always comes. it never asks permission.
Today felt less like a birthday and more like a funeral for a version of myself. not because i am becoming stronger. not because i am becoming wiser. but because i am slowly letting go of my expectation that people will stay the same forever. it is a quiet letting go. the kind that does not make any sound. the kind that nobody notices.
The day is almost over now. Tomorrow, WhatsApp will come back online. Instagram might return. people will continue living their lives. work will continue. college will continue. the world will continue moving without asking for my permission. and i will continue moving with it. because that is all there is left to do.
For now i remain a twenty year old student sitting in a rented room somewhere in india trying to build a future that does not exist yet. the story is unfinished. and maybe that is the saddest part of all. it is still unfinished. and it might always be. that is all.