It wasn’t always this way; me, counting down the minutes until I grew up, until teens switched to twenties. It wasn’t always this way, when I would think, “I can’t wait to look back and laugh at all the chaos.”
It wasn’t always so easy to get excited about getting older, about growing up. But now, looking back, I can’t believe I was ever nervous, that I was ever afraid.
Growing up, and by consequence, growing old, is a beautiful rite of passage – a special club that you only know about because you’re ready to be a member, a special group that only takes you in once you’re ready for it.
It’s a journey we all take and though it won’t always feel special, it is. It’s one of the few things in life that we all experience together, but all enjoy separately.
Growing up and growing old is about so much more than just ageing and shrinking: It’s about finding yourself, discovering yourself, losing yourself and regaining yourself; it’s about winning and losing, missing and making, and smiling and crying.
It’s about sticking a hand out in the dark, not knowing where it will take you, but trusting it to lead you to where you’ve always wanted to go. When you’re young, that blind trust, that unapologetic faith is shaky and unsure of itself, but when you’re older, it’s steady, confident, cool and comfortable.
In our Botox-obsessed culture, there’s such an emphasis on staying young. We stop off for injections to keep our faces tight, schedule surgeries to keep our breasts perky and hire high-profile dentists to shine our teeth into oblivion.
But we forget that we were made to age – we were born to make the ascent into age just as beautifully as we traveled into youth.
But growing up is less about reaching a destination and reaching a number — it’s more about embracing the opportunity to take the trip – the chance to lose and win, to fail and to succeed, to know wholeheartedly what we want and to do a little guesswork along the way.
1. LAUGH LINES AND WRINKLES
Call me crazy, but there’s something so striking about a face that’s earned its stripes. Living well means laughing well, laughing hard and laughing often; it means smiling when you want to cry and crying when you want to smile.
Sometimes, it means giving way to those large, cavernous sighs when nothing else seems to work and other times, it means bringing a room to attention with the raucous sound of your giggles.
There are so, so many things to feel little and empty about in this world, but staring at a face that’s weathered even the very worst of storms and is still standing – now that’s something to be proud of.
2. SETTING DOWN
At some point, I won’t always crave the hustle, bustle and relentless noise that comes as a “perk” of living in the most amazing city in the world.
At some point, I’ll want a yard, a room big enough to fit a queen-sized bed and if I don’t want the white picket fence, I’m sure I’ll want something equally as clichéd and equally as satisfying.
At some point, I’ll want to entertain friends and family in a space where everyone can sit down and a kitchen that’s bigger than a closet. At some point, I’ll want space for a big dog that loves to run around and a wine rack that doesn’t double as a kitchen storage unit.
Settling down doesn’t have to include anyone or anything (but I wouldn’t be mad at the chance to share all that space with someone, either) – it just means that, at some point, I’ll be ready to stretch out my legs.
3. LAYING A FOUNDATION FOR SOMETHING
I’m not absolutely sure that 10 years from now everything I’ve been dreaming of and hoping for will have, in fact, panned out the way I’d imagined it would have – but there’s something really special and exciting about knowing that I’m laying the bricks for a foundation that will, one day, stand on its own – and it’ll all be because of my hard work (and hopefully someone else’s, too).
And for some of us, that foundation might be a year-long journey through Western Europe or maybe a month-long cross-country expedition with our three best friends from high school. Maybe the foundation is a future with Mr. Right, a house, three dogs and four cats or, maybe, it’s a brownstone in Brooklyn with your forever mate. Wherever it is and whomever it’s with, it’s refreshing to know that you’re working toward something.
4. REALLY KNOWING MYSELF
Better than college, better than high school, better than the feeling when 5 o’clock hits and the workday is finally through is the fact that I know myself now better than I ever did when I was 18 or even 20. The pressure to pretend to be something I’m not has long since faded and what’s left is room for me – just me.
There’s no parading around pretending I’m interested in EDM (I’m not), or that I love whiskey (I don’t) or that I’m just a soft-core “Harry Potter” fan (totally hardcore, for those curious) who only saw the movies (read the full series like eight times so far, whoops), or that I love staying up late (never did, never will).
When it’s just you – and only you – it takes away from all the fluff that people spend so much time pretending to be. I don’t have to pretend anymore. I don’t have to be anything but myself. It’s refreshing and rejuvenating.
5. LESS BULLSH*T
Before we get ahead of ourselves, there will always, always be some type of drama in life. But as you age, the “drama” is less about who kissed whom at your best friend’s house party and more about what you want to do with your life or whether or not you should let your on-and-off-again friend go for good, since the relationship isn’t really benefitting either of you.
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