No. 6 · The year I grew up

When my parents left for Canada, they left two of us behind. My second sister and me.

It was the mid 1990s. My father had his next posting, in Ottawa, Canada. But I was a year from finishing my London A-levels, and my sister was completing her CIMA. Our studies were not done.

So we stayed.

Two young people, in our parents’ house in Sri Lanka, on our own.

We were not exactly roughing it. There was a driver. There was help around the house. Close friends and some family would visit, and check that we were alright.

And we were still teenagers. Well, I was.

I remember coming home from school, switching on MTV, and having music videos for hours in the background. In the mid 1990s, that felt like a big deal. There was no one to tell me to turn it off.

There was the freedom of it and the excitement that we were leading our own path.

But there was another side.

My sister was four years older. More of a grown up than I was. So there was some security in that.

I had just learned to drive and received my license. So I drove around a lot. The groceries. The errands. Whatever needed doing, we did.

Gradually things changed.

We were no longer the children being taken care of.

We were the ones doing the taking care of. Of the house. Of the people in it. Of each other.

I was 17. And for the first time, other people were sort of depending on me.

That is the year I grew up.

Not because anyone taught me. I had good values, a sense of right and wrong. But no one trains you to be responsible.

Life simply hands you the weight, and steps back.

You carry it, or you do not.

I carried it. And I have never put it down since.

It is why, to this day, I believe in handing people a little more than they think they are ready for. Because responsibility is rarely taught.

It is grown. Usually the moment you have no choice.

The lesson:

You do not learn to be responsible. You become responsible the day life leaves you no other option. But it is your choice to become it, or not.

To be continued…

WAYPOINTS · No. 6

A series of inflection points on a journey still being written.