i was talking with some people lately about birthdays. i remember how difficult my 25th birthday was, how i begun to freak out: i was officially an adult, and is this where i saw myself as an adult? why am i not a rock star? why am i not fabulous and living in new york city? why am i working in property management in phoenix of all places? i mean, sure, i have a nice car and good friends and live by myself, but GEEZ. i'm not skinny! i'm not successful! and oh my LANTA, i need to start planning for future wrinkles! after sitting at a happy hour after work one day near to my birthday, i remember frantically racing across the street to wal*mart to buy oil of olay, hair color, and anti-wrinkle under eye cream.
i had figured that my 30th birthday would have been much worse, but oddly... no.
i was the first (by far) of all of my local friends to hit the big three-oh. i had a slight inner panic that suddenly they would feel that i wasn't cool anymore, that i was too old for their crowd, and leave me behind. but only for a moment, mind you.
my thirtieth birthday came and went, and an odd thing happened: i almost immediately felt more comfortable in my skin, more confident in who i was and what i wanted to become. i mean, not IMMENSELY more confident, but the weird anxiety about my future sort of disappeared. i decided what i wanted to be when i grew up and have been preparing to go back to school for it.
and in talking with my friends that were also over 25, we all realized that 25 seemed to be a nice landmark age for us, that things began to change. we didn't go out five nights a week anymore. we began to do weird things like stay home on work nights, and spend money a bit more responsibly. it seemed like turning 25 had suddenly officially turned us into adults, not post teens, which it had seemed like we had been before that.
in retrospect, i find it almost silly that i panicked so much about my 25th birthday, and amazed at myself that so little anxiety was involved at turning 30. i mean to look at it on paper: 30 years old, living with a roommate. no car. working retail. haven't played my guitar in MONTHS.
but no, i almost immediately felt better about everything, as if the big weight of my twenties had been lifted off my shoulders.
have any of you felt the same way? what would you feel have been your big landmark birthdays?
i had figured that my 30th birthday would have been much worse, but oddly... no.
i was the first (by far) of all of my local friends to hit the big three-oh. i had a slight inner panic that suddenly they would feel that i wasn't cool anymore, that i was too old for their crowd, and leave me behind. but only for a moment, mind you.
my thirtieth birthday came and went, and an odd thing happened: i almost immediately felt more comfortable in my skin, more confident in who i was and what i wanted to become. i mean, not IMMENSELY more confident, but the weird anxiety about my future sort of disappeared. i decided what i wanted to be when i grew up and have been preparing to go back to school for it.
and in talking with my friends that were also over 25, we all realized that 25 seemed to be a nice landmark age for us, that things began to change. we didn't go out five nights a week anymore. we began to do weird things like stay home on work nights, and spend money a bit more responsibly. it seemed like turning 25 had suddenly officially turned us into adults, not post teens, which it had seemed like we had been before that.
in retrospect, i find it almost silly that i panicked so much about my 25th birthday, and amazed at myself that so little anxiety was involved at turning 30. i mean to look at it on paper: 30 years old, living with a roommate. no car. working retail. haven't played my guitar in MONTHS.
but no, i almost immediately felt better about everything, as if the big weight of my twenties had been lifted off my shoulders.
have any of you felt the same way? what would you feel have been your big landmark birthdays?
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Comments
i'm quite jealous of your pale skin! even under 30 spf, i tan easily, which i hate. ah, well, grass is always greener, no?
about the hardest thing for me to turn thirty is that i realized that i was the age that mother was when she started lying about her age.
I hope the older I get the less I will care, because right now the ratio of caring what others think I should be doing against how I actually feel 80% of the time (not counting blues every so often or the PMS craaanky time) is falling in favor with how I feel.
Granted I don't live the life most people have at my age but then I can't look at my life and say I'm unhappy where I'm at now. If I died tomorrow I actually think I'd be ok with it. I mean not that I WANT to but before I was so afraid of something happenening because I thought my life was so worthless.
I'm finally after yearrrrrrs beginning to have days where it's meaningful. I have friends that I love, and friends who I hope love me. I think I've made leaps and bounds as to growing in emotional maturity and seeing things in perspective, I've been able to forgive (both myself and others), been able to laugh at myself but respect who I used to be, I have tried to remain true at my core but be more of a grown up about it.
I've also finally learned how to friggen dress myself.
So I'm actually looking forward to my 30s (which will be in less than 3 years)
ha ha @ dressing. i'm still having issues. i dropped all this weight, to where i am finally the size i was months before leaving phoenix, only to find that everything is WAY out of style now! ha!
35 was the big one. Ya wanna know what thought came up a lot and it was depressing?
I was no longer in the prized-by-advertisers 18-34 demographic. Silly, I know, but that's what made it real for me.
I'm glad 30 actually seemed to rejuvenate you :)
i was talking to one of my customers at officemax one day bout it, and he said that his REEEEALLY hard birthday was 37 for some reason, that turning 37 killed him emotionally. we both had a good laugh at the random number.
A lot of people were asking me how I felt about turning 30, and what I had to say is that I think I was just too busy with the rest of my life to worry much about it...I turned thirty about two and a half weeks before my wedding, and seven weeks before we moved to Florida...at the time of my birthday, we still hadn't packed up our house, gotten rid of the furniture we didn't want to move, and didn't have a place to live. The rest of my life took precendence.
We'll see what happens next.
Happy birthday, Aubrey.
you're such an incredibly strong and wonderful individual, luv. never forget that.
whenever i get carded buying beer, i grin VERY happily as i hand it to them.
i generally get guessed around 24, so i'm not complaining too much. i'm hoping that i age as gracefully as my mother (face-wise. health wise? i hope i'm 180 from what she's gone through.) as she's 55 and looks to be in her late 30's at most.
I believe that 25 is going to be a big milestone. I'm not sure if I posted this but I set 25 is a due date of sorts. 25 is the date that I was supposed to be “marketable”. That is done with classes or just about, on my way or having a nice paying job and saving for the future with a good head on my shoulders. If there was a someone in my life I wanted to be on the way to having one or at least be extremely attractive to the market. If I didn't that would mean that I had fallen behind schedule, fallen down on the construction of my life. With the bleak outlook that there is no real making up time this is disheartening and... depressing. Interestingly enough if things keep going well I might either end up being closer to my goals than I thought I'd be say three months ago or off the market for an acceptable reason ;)
I don't feel the pressures of life coming to a head. I know I am not a loafer just waiting for life to come and swallow me whole. I feel like I've already gotten a lot of work out of the way but I've got more to do. Lastly there is perhaps the denied side that might start itching to come out then there way be nothing. I'm not quit sure what it will hold but I'm sure I'm going to come out of it on top but I'll be vastly different... even if it is just those little bits inside that I don't show to anyone.
i go through periods where i'm highly motivated, and others where i avoid responisibility like the plague. i just wish i could remain constant.
beautiful response :)
i had a slight inner panic that suddenly they would feel that i wasn't cool anymore
I guess never having been cool, I had nothing to loose...
In the past few months I've felt like I really want to do something with my life, do something with my art, but I think that's less an age thing and more because of the enforced inactivity, lost time and energy, and (if I want to be pop-Freudian) the fact that I'm realizing I'm mortal, all due to Sue's extended illness.
i go through little times where i feel like i need to get myself out there and expose myself (in a non sexual way, naturally) to as many people as possible, because once i'm dead.. i'm just a memory. so why not imprint my memory on as many people as possible?
part of the reason i wanted to become a musician, methinks.
and you're so much more than just a mommy!
I guess this year was kind of exciting, what with having to FLEE for our lives and relocate and blah blah katrina blah blah.
my 21st sucked ROYALLY. i had had all these ideas about how 21st birthdays should have been. unfortunately, i was the first one of my friends to turn 21, so a bar was out of the question. i was living with a friend and her husband at the time. her husband was out of town, and we invited a coworker to go to the movies with us. so i went into safeway and bought jack daniels wine cooler thingies and smuggled them into the movie theatre. we watched the birdcage.
afterwards, we went back to our apartment, and i promptly ended up sitting by myself in the living room as the friend and the coworker went and made out.
LOVE the leaves, btw! :D
i do feel like my life is just beginning, in a lot of ways. funny how that works, as nothing's really changed yet.
maybe it's just that i'm getting so old that i don't remember much before i was 25!
I didn't make a big deal out of it and didn't have negative feelings about turning 30. I actually looked forward to it because I somehow felt that it was a more "legitimate" age, you know? Like, people in their 20s, no matter how mature or smart they are, automatically get written off just based on their age. I felt like 30 had more cred to it somehow, for whatever reason. I definitely feel more comfortable in my "30s skin" as opposed to 20s!