Letter to my Teenage daughter as she turned Fourteen, written on Feb 15, 2025

There is nothing in life that ever happens twice. Teens are one such phase which is a lived fossil in every adult’s life. The insecurities, confusions, decisions, dilemmas, dogmas all hovering in separate clouds ballooning the matters of the head and the heart.

I have been there. Almost there. I entered my teens without any guidance or preparation. Things were coming sometimes as dust and sometimes as storms. Sometimes as droplets and would drizzle my sizzling thoughts with imaginations on love and an ideal life and sometimes as thunderstorms and cloudbursts washing away my golden dreams in the thrust of success, achievements, fears and insecurities. Oscillating each day between the two, I saw many dreams and lived many lives. The lived ones always look like ordinaries. It’s the unlived which draws attention. The Extraordinaries of the Unlived life has significant meaning. All the stations where I could not stop and meet. All the views that I could not click. All the air that I could not breathe. The list goes on and on of the life that could, would and should have happened.

My dear Akshu, I am that lucky one, with you I am being born again. Reliving life with a new pair of eyes. Seeing all that I missed. The stations where I could not stop by. The views. The moments. The memories. The lanes are now neither dusty, nor stormy. They are quiet. Though I now oscillate between whether handing over a roadmap is a better way or let the mystery unfold towards the journey which is now yours. I think the strength is in indecision. The myth of I know it all, know more or know better is fixed and anchored in another life and reality.

My invitation to you is to enter your teens with your own illusions about reality. Let the future behold and reveal itself into a new story which will be your journey towards that self which you choose to be. As a mother, I am choosing the role of just opening the door and nudging you to enter. Gently and warmly. However, the choice and joy to discover this is entirely onto you.

Now, is the time to not prescribe what you ought and should and would and could do with your life and time. As everything that you choose and not choose are your stations. Both where you are stopping by and where you are not halting and stopping by. This journey can become very boring if we end up choosing everything. We must not choose all choices. As the inner rhythm is fluid and constantly seeks new beginnings and new meaning. Teens like every stage needs preparation. Feel Free: To travel. To write. To draw. To paint. To play. To correspond to everything that your heart is seeking. Teens are meant for doing. Do. Whatever you choose to Do. With ease and confidence.

In welcoming you to this teenage, I am Reliving my Golden Age

On becoming Your Mother, I am witnessing a Lifetime of Privilege. Love, Mumma