An older brother. A younger sister. I’m stuck in the middle.

For as long as I could remember, I wasn’t big enough to do certain things alone—like going on school trips or even sleepovers with my best friend of ten years. And certainly, I wasn’t small enough to get the TV remote from my younger sibling or snag the car's front seat.

At sixteen, I lay still on the sunlounger in our Airbnb in Faro, so still almost like a painting on a nursery wall. It was late at night, and I could only stare at the stars. The endless sky, full of beautiful stars, was unlike anything I’d ever seen. Living in the most populated country in the world, this one-month summer getaway kept me going through the other eleven months.

My mind was all over the place—career, grades, college, expectations, sports, friends, internships, SATs, cold emailing professors. A little bit of, "Oh, your sibling was so kind and social, why aren’t you like that?" And a little bit of, "Oh, you’re putting on weight with all that junk you’re eating." All of it was catching up to me. The more I tried to run away from it, the more it shadowed me every second—lurking as I gobbled a pastel de nata or swam on the magnificent beach.

But right then, as I stared at those stars that night, everything seemed to pass. Instead of the usual worries lurking in my head, killing my capacity to think about anything else, for the first time in months, there were questions like- Do people become stars when they die? Oh, that looks like a constellation. I want to know what it's called. What's that song? Um, now you’re in the stars, and six feet never felt so far…

Someday, when I become a star, I want to be that one—the brightest one.

For as long as I can remember, we teens are always told to be the brightest student, the brightest athlete, the brightest sibling, and the brightest in whatever the hell we do. The phrase “we are told” here does not only indicate our parents but mostly ourselves and the society we live in. We are supposed to stand out but not too much, so we remain part of the herd that we’re supposed to be in. Complicated, isn’t it?

I love to pressure and guilt-trip myself into thinking—what will my peers think of me if I don’t get that 90 on that exam? What will my teachers think? Will they see me as an average student who just doesn’t care? But what if I do care? My parents are investing so much money and time into shaping my life—but what if all I am is a disappointment? How will I ever pay them back? How will I ever pay back myself for the time that I have wasted? 

All of this is quite normal. All of us, well, most of us, go through this during our teens. Some of us feel these emotions more intensely than others. Some of us try to escape them. Some act like they don’t care, but they care the most. It’s how it works. We feel we change, we evolve, we try, and we rebel.

So, for that matter, I don’t want to be the brightest star in everything that I do; I just want to have stars in my eyes. I just want to be hopeful for the future and try my best, even if I am not the best. Because at the end of the day, who cares? I don’t want to live with regrets. Someday when I die, and well, become a star- people won’t remember how embarrassed I was when I tried learning that new dance step and totally messed it up in front of my whole class. Or how mortifying it was to be the only girl-rather the only person in my entire school to go and practice skating when all the girls were gossiping and chatting during breaks. Sure they will criticize you for days, maybe months, but they never look past the courage and strength it requires to step up. Stepping up. Yes, it is the most difficult thing in the world. We often try to escape it, try to run away from it. But just remember with time, if you don’t catch up and step up for your dreams, then regret and misery will surely catch up to you for the rest of your life. 

After Faro, we made our way to Porto. God oh! We all have seen those mesmerizing sunset reels on Instagram, and now we were there to witness that immaculate beauty live. We climbed up to the perfect spot with a small garden with just the perfect view of the city, the sea, the ships, the bridge, the sky, the cable car. It was breathtaking. However, something even more gripping had people in the grip of their seats. The Euro Cup quarter-finals- Portugal vs France. 

A humongous projector was set up in the garden with a herd of excited fans donning Portuguese football jerseys encompassing it. Glimmering young eyes of children in the hope to see their country rise high, cheeks colored in Portuguese flag, a buzz of excitement so palpable you could almost taste it. Every minute, with every move, rose the expectations and hopes of people. But after an unsuccessful match, with the score 0-0, the most interesting part arrived. The penalties. All eyes glued to the screen, on the ball. Penalty after penalty the score remains even. But then- Marco Felix a young rising superstar from Portugal tries his luck and kicks the ball, hoping to score a penalty. But that one wrong kick, one bad time, one wrong move cost Portugal’s elimination from the Euro Cup. The angry, disappointed, frustrated crowd probably cursed a couple of times(from what I could understand from their expressions), then packed up their picnic spot-beers in their hands, chips in their mouths. 

The sunset was jaw-dropping, almost unreal. But so was Marco Felix. 

While everyone there was pissed at him, the internet flooded with hate comments. That moment I realized watching that beautiful sunset right by my eyes- a pot-bellied man in his mid-30s- standing right next to me said- “you see that sunset, that’s the sunset of Felix’s career. Right then. That moment made me realize something that I never expected a sunset would teach me. 

I laid down under a tree, opened my shoes and socks, my hair in the grass. 

Felix played beautifully like that sunset. Each sunset portrays the ending of our day, and that sunset right there allowed Felix to let go. It didn’t mark the end of his career rather rewarded him with a chance- to wake up the next day and start again. From scratch. 

No matter what we do, people will always have something to say. Right there- while I respected him for his sportsmanship, a man who probably couldn’t even run 50 meters without huffing and falling straight to the ground criticized him for doing the right thing and standing up for his country. 

Lisbon. Also known as the city of seven hills. And in fact, it was quite very hilly. The sloping streets were splendid, but climbing up was a dreadful task. Honestly, it was quite like my life, all of our lives, with ups and downs. But that’s what made the city interesting and attracted tourists like me and you. 

Those streets weren’t just sloping and unique. They had a story of themselves. A story filled with lessons. As I climbed up each street- it took all of me- it was so tedious and required so much effort. My calves were screaming, my heart was panting, and sometimes we had to even take breaks in between to gather ourselves before the next climb. You could hear us saying “Oh god, help us! Ugh” a few times in our way.  But as we reached our destination none of that seemed to matter. The beauty had us struck. After so much effort, the view did us justice. To be honest, the places seemed even better and beautiful when we had to work so hard to get them. We were able to enjoy and appreciate it even more. However, traveling down the roads was quick- so quick you probably wouldn’t even notice. 

Always the best things in life require work, effort, determination, and faith in god. Things will work out for you. Then when you finally get what you want- the feeling of achieving it will be the best one out there. However careful, it won’t take you much longer to get to the bottom if you get stuck and looped around that happiness. 

After all that hard work we wanted a little reward for ourselves- what's better than a gelato?

As I stand in the queue in the gelateria- I look at my siblings- 7 years apart yet still fighting over some chips. Classic sibling behavior huh?

My mom stepped in and tried to resolve it, but as I stood there, looking at them for the first time it dawned on me that my parents were doing what they think is best for me and for my siblings. Restrictions and rules are a part of the bigger world to shape our character. I get that, but what about the future? Parents can’t tag along everywhere we go. I believe that restriction is the key to curiosity. When you stop someone from doing something, they are attracted to it even more.

Instead of restricting, why not try suggesting and showing us the better path and then let us make our choices? Make us understand that there will be consequences. Every choice we make has consequences—consequences that are undeniable, unseen, and probably neglected for some time but never gone.

Teens are considered the most rebellious type of humans, as seen in Hollywood movies. Well, I won’t fully disagree with that, but we are reduced to nothing but rebellious humans who try to hurt themselves and others in those movies—or at least the ones that I have seen. We are so much more than that. I consider our age the most difficult yet the most transformative.

Google says that “Teen rebellion happens due to their brain development, need for control, struggle for acceptance, attention-seeking, over-worried parents, hormone changes, and the teens' fight for independence.” That seems quite right to me. But I wouldn’t have put it like this. I think that teen rebellions happen because as we develop, our society and even our parents want us to think the way that they did, they want us to comply, to keep our imagination and world inside the box. Protected. They want to keep us protected.

But we see it as restrictive. As we grow, we want to see, experience, and experiment. But that involves risk. Our parents don’t want that for us. They don’t want to risk our future, more importantly, our stability, because they fear that it might lead to failure. But, we want to risk it all—because we don’t want to end up doing something that doesn’t bring us happiness. Not achieving stability is what our parents consider a failure, and not doing something in which we don't find happiness is our failure. Failure might mean differently for different people but the fear is what we share. 

“Your flight has been delayed for 2 hours”- as I sit in the airport- I gather all of this from this rejuvenating trip. My thoughts were collected. My memory was restored. My calves were in shape. My eyes had stars. It was quite a marvellous trip huh? 

But, I guess I'll always be stuck in the middle, clinging hard onto the invisible rope that'll someday bridge my dreams with reality.

 I am still mad about the flight delay though.