It is Day 1, and we have no ideas. Day 2, week 3, month 4, year 5, 6, 10, 13… the ideas come on, slow in the beginning, increasing in speed as the years go by.

I am a talker. Oh, I have no friends. Am I popular? I am intelligent. Am I a snob? Teachers like me! I am nice looking. Am I too smart? I am cheeky! I am a stick — no curves on my body, no curves in my hair — it is all straight! I think I might be attractive. Oh, guys like me! Am I intelligent, or plain lucky? Ooh, I am a sexual being. I hate this attention. I hate the spotlight. Maybe I am a shy person? Clearly, I am not a logical person. Wow, was I missing the signals ALL THESE YEARS? Such a misfit! Aargh, am I a tease? Do I believe in loyalty at all? I am so cold, so asexual. Ooh, I love people! I am a butterfly, flitting from person to person, place to place, one social scene to another! I am doomed to be forever cute, girl-child. Clearly, I am too darned open for my own good. Oh, I have zero social savvy, no sense of strategy at all, clearly a social misfit. Oh, people love me, kids love me, old aunties love me! I don’t want to work another job, not ever again. I am the original chamathu ponnu*, all over again, damn. I don’t want to talk to a soul! I need a couch and a warm blanket. God, give me absolute independence. Oh, I just crave silence! Ooh, I am sexy and attractive again? Me, a businesswoman? Perhaps. Maybe I like people, after all.

And so on, it continues. If I have a birthday resolution to make, it is this.

Stop The Labeling.

Time and again, I have surprised myself. Life is constantly ripping labels off me, so why do I bother affixing them?

Perhaps this is the point — Relax, Chill, Just Be. #Thisis40

*Can provide an explanation of the term, if required.