Alternate title: Time, Part II
The last time I was with my cousins was a few years back. It was a simpler time then, when we’d stay up later than everyone else, because we were the oldest, and because we could. A few times before that, I’d sleep over at my cousin’s house, where we’d play Commander Keen or Rollercoaster Tycoon until the early hours of the morning. And as soon as we woke up, it was straight back to trading Pokémon in Gold and Silver. Did I mention it might have been a little while ago? Yeah, it was a little while ago.
This time around, there’s been a lot less tomfoolery and a lot more rest and relaxation. We’re all quite a bit older now, and that has meant cousins are working during the day, or studying all the way up until the Chinese New Year holiday. One cousin is a practicing dentist, another is studying to be a doctor, and another is doing law at Uni. Of all the cousins around my age, all of them are doing Uni or already out in the workforce, either in Australia or abroad.
There’s nothing quite like a family reunion to remind you of how old you actually are.
When my cousins and I were younger — in our late teens, or thereabouts — we took a lot of things for granted, as you tend to do when you’re that age. We lived vicariously, in the here and the now, as the future was always a few more years away. It meant we could do whatever we wanted, whenever we wanted to do it. Being in our late teens was pretty great, actually — as we were the eldest cousins, we were given a little freedom (unlike our early/pre-teen siblings), whilst still having very little responsibility, especially around Chinese New Year when all the adults, i.e. our parents, would do all the work. All we needed to do was watch cartoons, sleep in until midday, have random naps throughout the day, that kind of thing. Yeah, that was the good life.
But I was watching an episode of Phineas and Ferb on the Disney Channel when I realised that those glory days were more or less over. Now that we’re older, all of us have suddenly grown up as we’ve all started to think abut our own lives and the future we want, whether that involves education and a career, or perhaps even marriage and kids. Now, it’s our younger siblings’ turn to revel in their youth, despite the fact that many of them are on the verge of becoming adults themselves.
It’s the classic coming of age story. Boy enjoys his youth. Boy realises, somewhat too late, that his youth has now passed. Boy becomes an adult, whether he likes it or not.
It’s not just with my cousins, either, who I only see every few years; I’ve seen the same transition into adulthood happen with my friends, too.
