#46 The Thrill of Growing Older

A coming-of-age of sorts

Hello!

In my last newsletter where I talked about loose commitments, I briefly mentioned the humbling effect of growing older, which reminded me of my birthday essay published on Medium three years ago. So I decided I’d bring it here, lightly edited — and narrated!

Some notes on the narration: I dabble in voice acting, so here I’m using my English VA voice, not my day-to-day speaking voice. Also, I realize I’m a slow narrator; you can speed up the audio to your liking if you’re using the Substack app or your desktop. 😬

Happy reading/listening!

Last year’s birthday celebration!

I’d been warned as a teenager that growing older was a scam. “Being an adult?”, Meredith Grey began, “TOTALLY OVERRATED.” In the first season of Grey’s Anatomy, she told me:

Seriously, don’t be fooled by the hot shoes and great sex and no parents anywhere telling you what to do. Being an adult is responsibility. Adults have to be places and do things and earn a living and pay the rent.

Today, I’m a 28-year-old young professional and a first-time condo dweller.

And damn was Meredith right.

But a few months ago, something strange happened. A question thrown offhandedly caught me off guard — and made me rethink what it means to get older.

“How old do you feel you are?”, a friend asked our circle.

“I feel like I’m—”, I struggled to continue, considering how the others claimed to feel like they were still in their early twenties.

“33?!” a friend teased.

Well, I was just going to say 30.

But given my friends’ endearing humor, I had no choice. That night, I was thereby decreed five years ahead of my birth age.

But whether it’s 30 or 33, neither sounds… bad.

I suppose you can look at the question this way: Maybe the age you feel to be is more or less the age you wish to be. But it’s not like I look forward to being the target of a $60 billion global anti-aging market. And as a woman, I know I have to negotiate virtually everything I want to do in life versus settling down. The thought of being 30 should stress me out. So why doesn’t it?

On a warm, mellow Sunday afternoon in a cafe called Wildflour, I was due to catch up with Ana and Robbie, two amazing thirtysomething ladies I worked with in my first job.

The latest juice with Ana was a recent fling that turned sour. The gist? The guy was immature (no surprise here), but still, she fell for it (“Mistake number one: I was lonely”). If anything, this brief lapse of judgment only cemented what she always knew she wanted in a relationship. And with an absentee dad — “the original fuckboi” — she knew she deserved better.

Robbie had just started in her new job. After trying very hard to make it work with her terrible ex-boss, she just could no longer do it. Meanwhile, things were pretty steady in her long-distance relationship with Sex King (Not his real name! But it sure sounds close.) They knew they wanted a future together. The rub? She wasn’t sure how she felt about his version: where they’d live and, consequently, the role he’d play as a husband and potential father.

When I hang out with Ana and Robbie, I always feel like I’m in an episode of Sex and the City. Admittedly, I don’t follow the show, but I like to think that afternoon and all our other rendezvous resembled the typical scene: a group of girlfriends with well-paying, corporate jobs, living the independent urban life. Sangrias. Gossip. Vacation plans. Talk about men and relationships and dating — you know, all that sexy (or should I say, sorry?) grown-up stuff?

When I identified as a 30-year-old, I wondered: Am I just being pretentious? Did I pompously consider myself a full-fledged adult because I now live on my own and enjoy unlimited sangrias and roll with cool and sexy ladies like Ana and Robbie?

But as I thought more about why I’m so drawn to them, I realized that it isn’t so much about the optics of growing up as it is about the promise of having lived more years. These two feisty, funny, and fiercely independent women show me that growing older, as the adage says, can make you wiser.

Isn’t that amazing? How every year of your life can promise clearer lenses and sharper senses?

Youth is a wonderful memory until you remember the stuff you’d rather not.

Exhibit A: In college, I went to a party on a Friday night knowing I had dance training the following day. I can do this, I thought, striking a deal with myself to moderate my drinking.

The next day, I arrived at the studio on time. Look at that fresh face in the mirror, I thought. All geared up for training as if she didn’t come home at 2 AM!

Then, the conditioning program began. And by the third push-up, the floor started to spin and my arms were begging to give in.

I’ve always been a firm believer that you can push your mind to push your body. But, as I’ve had to learn many times over, you can’t rise above alcohol. Or a hangover. Or your own stupidity.

Exhibit B: A few years back, while on vacation in Denver, CO, I visited a bookstore called Tattered Cover where, upon entering, I saw a small audience listening to a man on a podium. I took no interest in whatever that was.

But what did interest me was capturing my #OOTD. So my sister and I went outside, found a bench on the sidewalk, and, as unremarkable as the setting was, proceeded with my photoshoot. My sister took “candid” photos of me sitting there — smiling, laughing, wistfully looking away. Hundreds of takes later, I deemed none of them to be Instagram-worthy.

Later that day, I remembered the bookstore event and googled it, confident it was someone who wasn’t that interesting.

Well, it was just the Ryan Holiday.

My Denver trip on Instagram; the bench photoshoot did not make the feed

My default perspective of the years gone by has always been some sort of a golden age — a time when I felt like I was winning in life. But now? I’m not so sure. My gut — that thing that insists (or pretends?) that I’m older than I am — has made me look at my past with a more skeptical eye. And when I put those small but mortifying moments and past motivations under scrutiny, what comes out are whole swaths of my youth that I definitely do not miss.

First, there’s the desire to have it all. I mean, it’s hard not to when you’re young and can’t help but feel invincible. But it’s this illusion that makes it hard to grasp, much more accept, the only certain thing in life apart from death and taxes: the need to make decisions.

Early into Spider-Man: No Way Home (no spoilers here), it was obvious to me that Peter was in for a huge loss. But, despite his delicious abs, I couldn’t bring myself to feel sad about how things turned out, to root for a character that reminded me of a past self that once ignored the fact of choices. The self that thought that she could be, should be, indefatigable.

But the power of the movie, for me, is this: this is where Peter Parker truly understands what it means to be Spiderman. That no one, not even a superhero, can have everything.

Decision-making, as author

Amy Shearn

wrote, is the worst. “It forces us to accept that we can’t actually do everything; that despite what we’ve been told, possibilities are not limitless; that being alive is one road not taken after another.” Surprisingly, once you’ve swallowed this bitter pill, I’ve found that life does feel lighter. More bearable. More human. There’s so much peace in gaining a sense of priority. In letting go of both the pressure and desire to accomplish everything.

Then, there’s the herculean task of being yourself. I mean, your true self. Reflecting on myself, it’s astonishing how one can be so self-conscious yet so poorly self-aware.

Do you do things out of inspiration or insecurity? Did you buy into it because it’s what you really want or are you just scared of feeling out of place? Are you taking care of yourself or escaping from yourself? What would you do or how would you act if you had no means to broadcast your life? Are you speaking out because you’re supposed to be woke or because you’ve truly weighed the issue? Another like, scroll, swipe — how much value does it all bring to your life? What are you trying to prove? What are you trying to hide?

In the isolation and slowness of this pandemic, I found myself sitting with all these questions, grasping more and more how our systems have made looking outward our default, making this world the least conducive place to listen and, much less, understand yourself. So, for a time, I quit social media. I thought it was the only way to get rid of all the external chatter. To really get to know my thoughts, what I like, and define how much of the world I will allow into my life.

The last feature of my youth I do not miss is this: the restlessness of it all.

I don’t miss being busy. Or even being wildly productive. I don’t miss feeling like something’s amiss when my calendar isn’t full. I don’t miss trying to make it to everybody’s plans, being out and about all the time. I don’t miss jumping from one thing to the next just because I can. Or worrying about where to jump next. Or that I have to jump soon if I want to be “on track” — whatever that means.

Fast, upward, linear — why do we insist that life should be this way?

I’m over it. I am over trading mindfulness for motion and meeting milestones only to realize I want another one. I’m done thinking that running ourselves to the ground is worth it, as if it were the best way to go about our dreams.

As career coach

Michael Thompson

said in a hot yet comforting take: “There is absolutely nothing wrong if you feel like you don’t have it all figured out. Despite what many people believe, our careers are long.”

Life feels so much more manageable, and dare I say more meaningful, when you board your own train, savor the view that comes with a leisurely pace, and trust that each stop, at any time, is exactly where you need to be.

As you get older, are you getting worse? Or are you improving? In the movie Before Sunset, Jesse ponders this question and admits he can’t really say. But here’s what he knows for sure:

When I was younger, I was healthier but I was racked with insecurity. Now I’m older and my problems are deeper, but I’m more equipped to handle them.

What a beautiful perspective — seeing time and experience as tools. Maybe being equipped to handle your problems is as simple as this: it’s being just a little less a slave of things that once felt “couldn’t be helped.” Like old habits and limiting beliefs and FOMO and your own ego. Workload, notifications, and invitations. Messages that feed on your insecurities and serve you fabricated notions of what it takes to be happy.

As with most things in life, a little counts for a lot. And I think that’s why I answered that I felt like I was a thirtysomething. I feel lightyears away from a past yet recent self — the one who had such a shaky sense of priority, of her self, and her own means of “making it.”

For sure, there’s a lot more work to do. I’m fortunate to have friends like Ana and Robbie who remind me of the headspace I want to be in. And I’ll always be working towards that. But as every birthday comes, I’ll celebrate getting older, trusting that, as Cheryl Strayed said: “You will come to know things that can only be known with the wisdom of age and the grace of years.”