What Turning 29 Really Feels Like

This year, I turn 29 (and so does Cosmo India). Some reflections are in order.

- By J Shruti

My early twenties were horrid.

Swept with anxiety, deadlines, internships, job and grad-school applications, crippling self-esteem issues and a crumbling romantic relationship—my sense of self was turbulent, at best. A Type-A personality, overly eager to seem ambitious, swayed by editors who were smarter and on safer footing in newsrooms, self-conscious ramblings constantly used to spill from my mouth. It is also alarming to me how often I thought about myself in third person, internalising the gaze of the people I worked for, and predicting next month's mood based on how much they loved me. Which is why I was surprised that when I met a friend recently, they told me that they were daunted at the prospect of speaking to me during a long internship stint, because I seemed “sorted, calm, levelheaded.” I will chalk this discrepancy up to us being overly tuned to the thoughts of others, but little regard for the actual self.