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Youth Is Wasted on the Young
All the trees turned green, overnight. It’s like the world changed and I missed it, and I’m not sure if it always happened this way or if time just moves more rapidly now that I started to pay attention.
I’ve been thinking a lot about time lately, as I tend to at this part of the year, but this now it’s all hitting me a lot harder. In a few weeks, I turn 35.
Okay, Ricochetti, you may all snicker and taunt me for my angst, but for some reason this birthday feels ominous and scary like no other before it.
I am moving toward that part of life where I am supposed to be grown up, but I feel myself resisting it with every inch of me, refusing to give up on my youth.
Because, honestly, I just found it.
My mother always said I was born 45. A serious child that hated to play and refused the company of others, I kept myself to myself and enjoyed the company of books and horses on the idyllic farm where I grew up. I didn’t have boyfriends, I didn’t climb trees or learn to ski or put firecrackers in birdhouses just to see what happened. Some would say I was dull, but I never suffered boredom, because the world inside was always better than the alternative and never disappointed, even once.
But now, at 34 and 11 months I see the world so clearly. After a marriage and a divorce, two perfect children, and many lives lived, I no longer fear the things that used to hold me back. It took me longer to get here, I guess, and now I want to stay, because I’m not ready to be done with this yet. I’m not ready to stop being a fool.
In my mind, 35 means I should be someplace I’m not even close to. I should own a house and have a “real” job (according to my father that means being a doctor, lawyer, or professor) and a pension plan that does not include vague ideas of being independently rich and fabulous.
I am turning 35 and I am panicking. I’m not a grownup. Hey, I’m not even close. Through some weird Benjamin Button-style aging, I started at a mental age of 45 and am now sitting steady at around 23. Unfortunately the mirror disagrees and I spend more time than I should exfoliating and moisturizing to make the outside match the irresponsible Prince-fan that still rules my emotional realm.
I still haven’t decided if I’m a smoker yet, and I never got around to climbing a tree. I still occasionally drink too much at a party and I always dance in my underwear while vacuuming the kitchen floor. I haven’t got a driver’s license and I sometimes make burgers and eat them in bed while watching old episodes of “The Wire.” I don’t think grownups do stuff like that, and I’m not ready to give it up.
I know it’s not all bad, this whole aging thing. I feel things now like I never did. I smell the baby blanket of my now 13-year-old son and I cry when the emotion and memories rush over me like wildfire. I experience every morning with a strange sense of urgency and gratitude. I love more than I ever did, I ache more than I thought was possible. Life is vivid now, and unfortunately with that its progression is as palpable as the colors of the newly turned trees.
My mother lost four sisters to cancer, and they all died before the age of 40. I never used to think about that, but I think about it now. I was an unhappy child, but somewhere happiness found me, and ironically my life now feels like walking through a dodgy neighborhood with my pockets stuffed with pearls. It’s strange, really, because when I was younger, I complained about everything; now that I have much less, I feel I have it all. Aging reminds me of all the pearls I have yet to pick from the bottom of this glorious ocean.
With this age-related crisis, I turn to you, fellow Ricochetti, as I’ve done before with questions big and small. Let’s call it crowdsourcing in lieu of therapy, as this is much more fun than paying someone 300 bucks to sit and scribble while I talk to myself.
Tell me, in your opinion, what gets better with age and what is off limits? Am I still allowed to be foolish; am I still allowed to get a little bit drunk and dance all night? What is it to be a grownup, what should one have accomplished to earn that title and claim that throne, and what do you guys do when the passing of time hits you in the middle of the night like the final chorus of “Bohemian Rhapsody?”
With love and some anxiety,
Annika
34 years, 11 months and 8 days old.
Published in General
I love that. My new plan is to get lost on purpose more, and find beauty and adventure by mistake.
It does apply, so I take comfort in that, thank you :)
Haha, it DOES make me feel better. Thanks, Mr. Miller
Thank you, I’m hanging on and feeling (somewhat) ready!
Uh oh, if 35 is the year of self doubt and angst I wonder what those other 34 were… ;) It does cheer me up, and I am part Russian so that makes sense. Melancholy overload…
Here in Sweden, we are never supposed to be adults. Sure, we can drink to our heart’s delight but should I want to learn how to kill that will be through boredom and bureaucracy. And yeah, you’re right. Things could be a helluva lot worse and it is up to me to make them better with whatever my alloted time is. As for adulthood, I’m beginning to think it’s a scam, cause come to think of it I hardly know any adults. Even my close friend who just turned 88 makes dirty jokes and dreams of love. So I have hope, and I have faith.
I’ll be .67 centuries old next month. I bought a kayak last month and plan to float it at least 20 times per year for as long as I’m able. If I’m fortunate I may never be so ‘grown-up’ that I have to give up enjoying things I really like. I can’t run or jog due to hyper extending a knee a few decades ago, but we walk 3-4 miles on hills 3 days a week and work out at the Y 3 other days. We do that to be able to do other things we enjoy like trails in the woods and walking 5 miles at the Holland Tulip Festival in Michigan last week with our daughter.
My advice is to do the things you need to do, jobs, health and such in order to do the things you want to do, whatever they may be. Also, enjoy both what you like to do and what you must do; Happiness is a choice more than a circumstance. Realizing that freed me to be happy any time I choose. Not all the time, that is inappropriate, but much more often. And I almost never concern myself much about what other folks think of me as long as I know they have no legitimate reason to think badly of me. If they have a wrong bad opinion of me that is their problem; I have enough problems without taking on those of folks around me.
35 to 55 were the best and 55 to 65 was just behind. 65 to 75 not so much, can’t ski any more, don’t have a good job, can’t wade in a deep current, have to eat less, but then there’s the grandchildren. Youth isn’t wasted on the young especially if you take it seriously, sounds like you got it right. My regrets are that I didn’t take everything more seriously. So you did it right. It’s important to take everything seriously except oneself. It just takes time, learning and experience to get a grasp of just how rich life is.
You know you are old when for at least three bilateral body parts (knees, ears, shoulders, etc.) you have a good one and a bad one.
You know you are really old when two of those flip.
It’s your life, live it.
Society says we should be *this* by 30, *that* by 40, have such-and-such by this age, accomplish something by another age… it’s all crap.
I got sucked into that in my 30s, chasing the title, the money, the life status until it all crashed when I was 38. That’s when I woke up and said I’m living life by my rules, the h**l what anyone else (other than my wife) thinks about it.
You have health and family – what more does anyone need at any age?
Age is just a confining number – how old would you be if you didn’t know how old your were?
If you can’t work up enough despair over attaining age 35, watch Nikita Mikhalkov’s Unfinished Piece for Player Piano (based on Chekhov) and let Platonov do it for you, about 9 minutes from the end. It used to be available from Netflix, with English subtitles.
Mikhalkov is tight with Putin, and I have been told his father was a Stalin toady, but this is good work.
Relax. I’m 61 and still have a t-shirt that has “Almost Grown Up” emblazoned across it. A person who chooses science as a profession is someone who wants to continue playing long after childhood has nominally ended. This video was made when I was well past 35; the hysterical laughter in the background is mine.
Exactly right. At age 35, I had yet to ascend Teewinot Mountain and Mount Whitney, drive the Corkscrew on the Laguna Seca Raceway, or do an experiment on the R/P FLIP. Put in that perspective, life was pretty dull before age 35.
I leave you with a quote from Zorba the Greek:
I retire in 2 weeks. It is hard for me to get terribly frantic about someone turning 35.
But, speaking of “real jobs”, Rubber Duckie, who was a teen-aged bride, then had kids in her early twenties, started going to college part-time at age 32, and graduated at age 45. A dozen years later, she was making more money than I was in her corporate career (she is trained as an accountant and works for a large reinsurance company), and it was not because I was doing poorly.
The mind stays young but the body ages. I’m 54 but in my mind I’m 25. The body is definitely 54, though. I’ve always been a bit obnoxious though not as bad as I used to be. Perhaps that keeps me young.
At any rate, doing silly, fun things is appropriate at any age. I’m sure I’ll be a bit goofy in my 80s, if I make it that long.
Unless, of course, you want to do them around your children. Then the embarrassment level is off the charts and you wonder how you gave birth to such sour, humorless individuals.
I don’t think age has a lot to do with it. It’s where you are in a particular stage in life (accomplishments, relationships, etc.) that determine happiness. He said it best:
Frank Sinatra
I am close to 71. When I was your age I had many of your life experiences. Somewhere about that time I learned to live in the present. Don’t regret the past, it can’t be changed and don’t worry about the future , worry doesn’t help. Enjoy your life every minute. Very importantly make a concerted effort to keep healthy.And have fun.