What Inayath, you have changed so much..!?

A question that answers itself

“You won’t find the same person twice, not even in the same person”

[Mahmoud Darwish]

I was having a conversation with my friend and soon started texting one more friend. So just in a sarcastic way, they were saying to me I’m so changed. I responded with a giggle emoji and also suddenly typed a poem (we’ll look at it later).

I thought about it more deeply. Change… why do people always say that? They aren’t wrong we are always changing in our lives. The period of 20–25 is the peak age where you aren’t a child anymore, the final stage of your teenage, the last years of your Bachelor’s, and hardly understand life. 22 is the stage in life where most of us complete University, start earning and push ourselves forcefully into being an adult. We know all these meticulous financial things, yet we spend the money without thinking. We save time to do something productive and end up tired in the corner of the room scrolling our mobiles. Our loved ones are so happy seeing us growing and reaching this milestone (set somewhere, invisible, in the air). Some of us think of job, entrepreneurship, or trading, while others make themself prepared for a battle of competitive exams. Some even have plans to fly away for higher studies. Also, a few are going through a phase of break-up or patch-up modes with our GFs/BFs and a few love birds have already started planning to get married.

Or, in Tay Tay’s words,

Yeah, we’re happy, free, confused, and lonely at the same time
It’s miserable and magical, oh yeah…
Tonight’s the night when we forget about the deadlines
It’s time, oh-oh

[22 (Taylor’s Version)]

Yup, that being said, it’s the time when I felt a lot of changes in my life. I was moving away from friends and university had final exams going on. It didn’t feel like any stress or any change initially. Eventually, after a month or two when I entered this so-called corporate world, it hit me hard. I started missing all the things I would hate in my Uni life. It’s an overwhelming and drastic shift for a person like me, who is carefree, artistic, and not very disciplined. It made me think I was caged into something and might soon cease to exist. But everything became normal after a few months, which is a completely different story.

Yeah, the question about a person changing; What Inayath, you have changed so much..!?, was a very common phrase I had heard after my 10th grade. I was a quiet, timid person in my school days and after 10th grade, I started making friends. Two years of 10+2 are one of the best days of my life. I found a lot of amazing people who became my greatest strengths and in those years I got to learn a lot about life. I still cherish the memories. Soon after that, my Uni life started and suddenly I was a social butterfly all at once. Whenever I would meet my school or pre-uni friends they used to mock me, What Inayath, you have changed so much..!?

But when I revisit my life, my life, I feel that the change, people talk about, is nothing but the way I’m evolving. I made a lot of drama, I made a lot of mistakes, I made so many better choices, I made people smile and laugh, and I also made them cry and complain. I shunned some people and lost touch with some friends. Also, a few friends (who are more like family) became my ‘Constants’. I am evolving. But my family and closest friends agree that, at the core, Inayath has remained just Inayath. Inayath has always been that underrated yet popular kid, emotionally volatile and always hungry boy, ironically sadistic and extraordinarily intelligent man, a copyright holder for troublemaking, kind and most empathetic person, the epitome of self-love, an extremely creative artist, and an open-mindedly prejudiced guy… the list goes on.

Now, about the poem that I wrote as a reply, here it is:

I’m just a flowing River…