Letting go of a childhood fantasy

A few days ago, I was walking back from work. It was twilight, a time for creatures of the night to wake up. I was walking back, humming some song that was playing on my iPod, when I noticed a shadow out of the corner of my eye. Glancing around, I spied a woman; it seemed like she was wearing a veil.

In an instant, my brain jumped to the worst conclusion that it could think of, that this woman was a witch (from Roald Dahl’s The Witches). For a second, I was in utter despair, I’d just showered that morning. Obviously, she’d smelled me and was now going to torture me. I stopped in my tracks as the beats of the song in my ears and my heart swelled to a crescendo, and the woman passed me. What I imagined was a veil was just her hair. She was younger than me (that’s how it seemed). As I continued homeward again, a different thought struck me. That even if she was a witch, I wouldn’t be in danger of her anymore. Because witches targeted children, and I’m not a child anymore. Last month, I turned 22.

And that, more than anything else about turning 22 made me relentlessly sad. I was letting go of a childhood fantasy. Just yesterday, I also realized that High School Musical came out more than 10 years ago! While that news is still very shocking to me, it does not make me sad, or even feel too old. But this does.

Because, ever since I read The Witches, I was always wary. I would always check before I turned the corners of streets to see if there were gloved women waiting for me. It was just a silly childish fantasy, but something I’d believed for almost 15 years. And just like that, it was gone. The fact that I wouldn’t have to look behind me to check for witches (well let’s not get into the other things I might need to check for…being a woman in India) was telling 7 year old me that I’d finally grown up.

But I don’t feel grown up. I’m still studying. And after I’m done with my undergrad, I’ll study some more. It’s a weird place to be, when you’re an adult but you’re not so good at the adulting, even though I do live alone.