birthdays and ageism and the gift of hindsight

"Your 20's are the most fulfilling time of your life" I beg to differ.

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I once read a study that said 80% of your life’s most defining decisions have been made by the age of 30.

We live for our 18th birthdays, the celebration of 21, and the messiness between. But what if the prime years of our youth weren’t what we expected?

As the years pass, we can begin see birthdays as mundane: a slow reliving of the same moments, the way we drive our car to work and listen to our coworkers complain and return home exhausted and scroll the internet wishing we had someone else’s life. We can count down the days in dread, shrugging our shoulders and sighing when friends or family ask us to blow out the candles. We can, instead, focus on the lines deepening on our faces, and grey that specs our beards, or the way our body takes- what now feels like- days to recover from those three glasses of wine. We avoid telling others our age, we minimize the celebration, we stop throwing parties or allowing our friends to present us with cakes. We want to conceal it, life passing by.

The way I cower at the privilege of aging makes me cringe.

I was told constantly that my 20’s were the best years of my life, by any and every adult I came into contact with. And because so many older than me told me so, I believed it. “You’ll miss these years more than anything” / “just wait until real responsibility kicks in” / “I would do anything to be that age again!”

but I was hurting. and the wish to be where I was, confused me.

The disconnect between my body and mind kept me floating through space, nothing more, nothing less. I was detached from my human experience as much as possible, to avoid feeling the emptiness that defined who I was. If these are the best lives of our lives, I remember thinking, then what the hell is wrong with me? If the prime years of my life are this miserable, how much worse is it going to get? It felt like a gut punch every single time— the glorification of our youth-filled 20’s and the exploration and fulfillment, supposedly found in them. It’s only going to get worse, and I accepted the idea of it.

my 18th birthday, I think.

On the other side of all of this, lies the fear of the dreaded 30’s. Life must end at the 29 mark. Your skin wrinkles, you’re tired, you’re boring, you’re washed up. I remember the sadness I felt on my 30th, swallowing the perceptions of others and what my life would look like on the other side.

The perception of growing older was heavy. The incentive to survive is deeply biological, and us inching closer and closer towards death is naturally terrifying. Of course it unnerves us, adding another year to our body count. Thoughts of death lingering in our subconscious.

When I neared by 30th birthday, I was holding my breath, waiting to hit the wall. But the wall never came. I did not shrivel up and die. The expectation, the bracing for impact, turned out to be the worst part.

The more I grow away from the person I was, the more I realize my 20’s were an actual nightmare. Many of those years, I do not remember, at all. Even my teens. And for good reason.

I attended college with no thought of what I wanted to do with my life, other than having to check boxes for other people. I lost a best friend in a drunk driving accident, because we were embedded in a life of reckless abandon. Grief swallowed me whole. I drank myself to sleep. I slept on too many unknown bathroom floors. I repeated toxic patterns in my relationships with men. I never slept, never created, never dreamed. I dated men who hated me, and told me so. I believed in begging for love like a sick dog, looking for a place to sleep. I never asked for anything, I took so little. Migraine medications were essentials. I lived paycheck to paycheck and went severely in debt to remain dedicated to my teaching career, all because I thought I had to. I dedicated my youth to a relationship that was failing. I said no to the master’s degree of my dreams to prove I loved a man, hoping he would choose me. I never chose me. I gave years of my life to pretending there were no problems, I created my own problems and drowned in them. I look back and see photos of me each year, celebrating at a different bar, with a different group of people. I am smiling. With a drink in my hand. Doing my best to forget that this was my life.

It’s always important to remember it wasn’t all bad, either. I like to think of my 20s as a door, cracked open at the end of a long, dark tunnel. The disorientation leaves me breathless, stumbling from side to side— toward the only speck of light glowing light my squinted eyes can see. Luckily enough, I was able to regain my true north. I was able to learn the impact of my actions, that my actions have consequence, that being disconnected from yourself causes harm to others. I had the opportunity to fall in love, build a home, and walk towards the idea of marriage, all to find out that I was in fact, very much in love with the idea of it. In this, I learned how to grieve the part of myself that awaited this fairytale, hoping it would take me far away from the place I had been living in. I started painting again, in the tiny quiet corner of the kitchen in our 60s apartment in New York, where our landlord would pop her head in every few days and say hello. I lost friendships. I quit jobs. I packed a van and moved 900 miles from home. I fell in love with the idea of building a life, just with the wrong person. But it taught me that it is still there—the longing to be loved—buried deep somewhere beneath the shame and disbelief of calling off a wedding and handing him back the ring.

2019 in my studio

The extreme disconnect between my body and mind makes me look back hesitantly on my 20’s, only to experience it with blurred vision— as if waking from a fever dream trying to interpret the characters and faces of those I no longer recognize; including myself.

But there, in the rock bottom that was my life, I had no choice but to to tend to my wounds. I learned how to control my drinking, control my temper, and step outside of the role my family set for me. I lived, for the first time, entirely by myself, and supported my sister and I through a global pandemic. I started going to therapy. I stopped leaving my body during sex. I adopted the dog of my dreams and took her on sunrise beach walks and spent more time floating in the ocean than I ever had before. I met my best friends who carried bags of take out into my kitchen on the nights I couldn’t stand from the grief; in which I learned to navigate through Bri braiding my hair and Lindsey listening to me cry and Keira validating that I was in fact, allowed to change my mind and allowed to say I was hurting. I fell in love again and realized how much work I still had left to do. I joined a yoga studio and found healing in breath and community. I packed many bags and headed off into the woods for weeks at at a time. I hiked mountains and left my hair in braids for days living in a van with my best friend. I was able to quit my million side hustles and support myself fully, as a painter. I cooked meals and moved my body and painted late into the night.

My 20s were not all torment. But my 30s were that light at the end of the long, terrifying dark tunnel. I’ll never forget what daylight feels like.

Seeing the future

As I was sitting in my car last night at a red light, driving home from the store, I wondered what 21 year old me would think if she asked to see the future, and this was the moment she was gifted— peering into a tiny moment of the every day— me seated alone in my car, with bags of veggies and fruits, to turn into an apartment complex near the ocean. Maybe she would notice there is no husband seated next to her, or kids happily singing in the backseat. That my hair is long, down my back, and more my natural color— I’ve stopped bleaching and cutting it into a bob. Maybe she would be amazed by the tattoos covering my arms, having never been allowed to express herself or step outside of the good girl norms of her family structure. That I drive my own car and have my own apartment, where my dog meets me excitedly at the door and my paintings hang, unfinished and welcoming, as if being greeted by ghosts and family members. Would she be disappointed? I think to myself, placing the avocados in the basket of my fridge.

What she cannot see from that snippet of her future, are the monumental things. She cannot know, peering into that moment in the car, how much feeling she has in her body now: in her arms, her legs, her chest, her heart. When standing in the ocean, she can feel the waves press gently against her skin, the way the salt sticks to her hair and lips and eyelids. When someone she loves pulls her in to hold her, her skin doesn’t feel like fire any longer. She can cry when she is sad, she does not laugh when the joke is not funny, and she will open her mouth and express herself when something doesn’t feel right. She cannot see the way she now advocates for herself, the way she cooks and feeds herself nutritious dinners and the joy she feels when gathering around the tables with her friends. She does not see the hundreds of miles of trails she’s hiked, the thousands of hours of painting she’s accomplished, the love she is surrounded by in her hardest moments; not just when she is shining and acceptable to the world. She cannot know from looking in the window of the car that day, that her future self feels love and responsibility for the person that she is. That she wishes she could go back in time, and give that safety and protection to her younger self, too. Don’t be disappointed, I want to whisper to the ghost of my younger self who I made up in my head, who is not watching from the past but I talk to anyway— you have more to live for now than you could have ever dreamed of. You are finally living for yourself.

My life has expanded, long beyond what I deemed possible. If it weren’t for the trials and tribulations of my 20’s, would I have reached this point? Or would I have done it sooner, quicker, more efficiently? There’s no way to tell.

I have been growing up too quickly since I can remember. Abandoning my girlhood, my body, and my innocent mind long before I wanted. I want to finally have a say in where I’m at, and where I’m headed. I wish I could have been a late bloomer.

I’m making up for it now.

As a woman in her early 30’s, I am not married. I do not own a home. I have no children. This is not what my 17-year old self expected. It’s much better.

My 20’s were years living for other people. My 30’s are for me.

The only reason I ever panicked over leaving my 20’s behind, was because other people told me that I should. Similar to the idea that I should be married, I should settle down and stop traveling, I should have a more predictable career. I am done living my life around the concept of other people’s should’s. I have no longing to be back, puking into a toilet four nights a week because I need alcohol to avoid dealing with my emotions, or working 80 hours a week for a thankless job, living off of buttered noodles because I can hardly afford my rent, crying myself to sleep next to my oblivious partner who had no intentions of growing alongside me. That kind of loneliness is the kind that can kill you. I have no regrets in walking away from all of it.

I am tired of walking through the world hearing other women say things like “just wait until your face changes”, “just you wait until you have kids”. Just you wait, is how the threat always starts. As if aging is some inescapable punishment, a countdown, the awaited demise.

Just you wait, I will tell you— for the wisdom and confidence and innate sense of self that will emerge one day, one that you cannot yet comprehend. “You cannot see it yet, because everything is blurring together,” Bri says to me, my face in her hands, as I sit heartbroken on the empty apartment floor, “But there is a life much greater and bigger and happier on the other side of this.” There are things much brighter, much more natural, more fulfilling and safe, on the other side of 20. Or 30. or 50. Stop holding your breath, waiting to stop time.

Standing between your 20’s and 30’s is a beautiful place to be. I expect my 40’s and 50’s, if I am lucky enough to get there, to feel even better. Life is not a performance where we attempt to catch and contain the attention of everyone around us, convincing them we are worthy of love and hope and patience. My 20’s felt like an unending performance. I thank my body for seeing me through, even though I abandoned her, left her for dead.

I struggle with anxiety and depression, and birthdays can sweep me away in the undertow if I’m not careful. Another year of accomplishing nothing, another year of the same, another year of wishing and longing and begging for more. But ah, says the quiet voice, if I sit down and listen: You are not behind. You are right where you’re meant to be. This has never been about age. It is not about a certain period in your life being the ultimate “I’ve arrived” feeling. In fact, it’s just the opposite. There is no timeline to experiencing the best, most healed version of yourself. Our youth, more often than not, is usually the farthest thing from that. We hate ourselves during our youth, and our culture does it’s best to take our newfound confidence away once we’ve outgrown it, telling us to hate ourself once we’ve healed in age. Oh, you’ve accepted your flaws and love your body, your mind, your spirit? We won’t stand for that. Your face is wrinkling, get some botox. Can’t you feel the shame of being older? Of being you again? It’s a game I won’t play anymore.

I will forever be working towards that unlearning. Life unfolds, as it may, in the process.

My newfound confidence of my womanhood has allowed me to more relax into the path of my life, and the elimination of those timelines. I love being a late bloomer. It graces me with the privilege I never had as a young girl. I will take back the things taken from me, too soon. My 30’s are for remembering that I am allowed to change my life, even if it avoids the safe bets. I learn to bet on myself. I learn that knowing other people is the deepest form of intimacy and I trust them enough to know me.

Each year, on the same date, the sun rises and sets, and with it, if we are the lucky ones, we add another year. Time sits down beside us and takes us by the hand, willingly or unwillingly, pulling us through. The pavement still boils in the summer heat, the leaves will be raked into piles, the snow will still fall with the branches decorated in ice—with less of our childlike enthusiasm to run through each of them, if we start to believe it.

Choosing between one or the other seems simple. But in paying bills and raising children and making the grocery list and doing the work and stressing over the climate crisis, it can be more difficult. There’s always time to remember.

There will never be enough time, I find myself saying more often, as I look up at the blue moon or kiss the head of my dog or watch the cow birds fly over the marsh.

It seems like yesterday I was celebrating my birthday. Again, another year has passed.

I work tirelessly to avoid living in the shadow of the girl I was when I was 21, 25, and even 28. And for the first time in a long time, I’m able to leave the shame associated with her— there, in the shadows— where she belongs, as I firmly step into the light.

Without my 20’s, I would have never met me.

My 30’s though, is where she gets to be free.

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