This past year has been quite the year. So long!
I turned twenty-nine.
I rescued a dog, who had thirteen puppies.
I raised those puppies and that dog in the midst of a global pandemic while depending on the kindness of family and friends as we bought a house as we dealt with rare puppy disorders as we coped with Dylan losing his job as my work slowed down to a near halt as we criss-crossed the country.
For the first three months of the pandemic, I was stuck inside with fifteen dogs, of which thirteen were completely dependent upon their mama and me. I was run ragged to the point of complete exhaustion. My body was even starting to give out under the physical strain of toting around thirteen large puppies.
As a constant struggler of anxiety, depression, PTSD, and in a perpetual nihilistic crisis, it was not an ideal time to be trapped inside with me, myself, and my multiple internal narratives of doom for company.
Now, I work from home under normal circumstances, so I am very used to my own company. I used to joke about never leaving the house, but that’s not nearly true. I was always on the go. Having lunch with friends, traveling, going to dog parks, attending events, exploring fun Houston things, creating content, and so much more. My calendar and life were filled with talented people who inspire me.
Everything changed. The puppies gave me a brief respite. They’ve helped alleviate the catastrophic train wreck that would have been my mental health with their pure existence in my life. But during the pandemic, I’ve felt like I’m watching my impending quarter-life crisis trundling right at me for all of the reasons: imagined and real.
I turn thirty in one week. I am not one of those women who are scared of turning thirty. In fact, I quite embrace it. The vast majority of me is so ready to be out of my twenties. Those really sucked a big D. I’ve gone so far as to preemptively tell people I’m thirty for the last few months because why the fuck not. At the same time, thirty does come with its fair share of burdens.
As a woman, this is an age where culture, society, the media are persistently confronting me with an alarm clock ticking down the time left on my worth to and in this world.
I feel like time is running out. I’m almost thirty. Society is a barrage that, as a woman, life ends at thirty. I know it doesn’t. So far all the women I know over thirty have not ceased to exist when their 10,957 day arrived. But, no matter how hard I’ve tried, I can’t help internalizing all the cues telling me life as I know it is over for me and, in a week, I’ll be shipped off to the glue factor with last month’s Kentucky Derby winner—who even remembers that horse anyways. I think if we took the part where I had to age in society out of the equation, I wouldn’t care at all. If I could hermit á la Michel de Montaigne circa 1571, I don’t think I would give a rats ass about aging and this post wouldn’t exist at all. Unfortunately, I must be of this world.
I would be 100% lying to you if I said, “I have not ended up covered in snot crying on the kitchen floor being held by my partner as the dogs try to figure out what’s wrong with their seemingly resilient mama because I’m getting older and the world will stop looking at me and stop caring because I have a gray hair (I haven’t found one yet; that’s not a lie) and the hints of forehead wrinkles so none of my big dreams will come true because they haven’t come to fruition yet and all this work has been for naught and fucking life is hard.” That would be a lie. It would be a lie if I said it didn’t happen at regular intervals over the last two years. I’m not scared of getting older, but I’m scared of how the world will treat me as I get older. The world hasn’t been kind to me for the first thirty years when I was apparently worth something, so how the hell is it going to be for the next seventy years? Society tells me: not great.
Life is terrifying. There is so much to process, handle, solve, enjoy, escape, see, do, taste, smell, and avoid all the time; honestly, I love each and every one of those pieces of living life. But being an aging woman is just terrifying. I know it’s different for me than it was for my mother and grandmothers, but things haven’t changed so much that wrinkles and grays and numbers don’t matter in the world. They do. And I don’t really care for anyone to tell me otherwise because my entire life all I’ve ever been validated for is my looks and what that means for my place in the world. The marriage I could make, the doors that will open, the way life will be “easier” because I was tall, thin, fair. So for me and my life experience, the moment my boobs start to droop, my waistline starts to expand, my hair starts to thin, my skin starts to slacken, what will I be? Who will care? It doesn’t matter and has never mattered that I’m intelligent, well-spoken, a linguist, possess a wicked wit, kind, giving, accepting, an activist, a writer, a creative, a critic, a dog mom, a friend, and all the other things that actually make me me and interesting and complex. My existence has always and almost solely been validated and made worthy by the way I look.
Who I am has always just been a positive addendum to the way I look.
So… I love getting older. I’m wiser, funnier, smarter, humbler, more experienced, a better listener, a better talker, a deeper thinker than I was at twenty. I think I’m cuter, but that’s probably because I know how to do my makeup better. I truly and completely love getting older. Life is so much better than it was twenty years ago, ten years ago, a year ago. I know myself more completely. I am happier at a week away from thirty than I was at a week away from twenty.
But… I’m scared of getting older. I don’t know how the world will treat me. I know how the world has treated women. I know how I want the world to treat women. And goddamnit, I have the audacity to age like the women who’ve come before me.
Now… I can only do one thing. Wake up tomorrow and keep on living my life. I’m going to moisturize and exercise—sometimes, infrequently, it will become a habit—to fight off aging physically, emotionally, but most of all mentally. More than anything, I’m going to keep working on my dreams. I’m going to keep creating new dreams. I’m going to strive for happiness. I’m going to live my life fully and enthusiastically surrounded by weirdos who love life and me. I’m going to support women and be everyone’s cheerleader. I’m going to be kind and find beauty in my body as it changes with the days and years I have ahead of me. I’m going to write. I’m going to lift up women’s voices of all ages because the world needs to remember that we women continue to evolve not stagnate. I’m going to tell my stories because I have seventy more years of stories, and I’ve hardly started on telling the first thirty years. My life isn’t over. I’m not done living. I will age with audacity.
bisous und обьятий,
RaeAnna
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