03022025: 34
Feb. 3rd, 2025 10:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
twomblyingWe're supposed to have so much fun, like puppy dogs with our tails wagging. It's supposed to be great living; it's supposed to be fantastic. — David Lynch
I’m not the same person I was when I almost walked into Manhattan traffic at 25. It’s not even been properly a decade since it happened, that’s next year. But I’m trying to stop looking at my life as a series of anniversaries so it doesn’t matter. But I keep thinking about it because I was in New York for my birthday last week.
I’m 34 now, which is such a hilariously stupid and wonderful age to be. I’m “in my 30s” but not at or over the hump of 35, which I’m sure will feel significant. I’m further and further away from my 20s but I feel more “in my 20s” than I ever did 10 years ago. It’s wonderful because I almost died at 16 and then when I didn’t, assumed I would die before 30. I keep thinking about something a friend of mine, 10 years older than me, said ages ago in passing when asked how it felt to grow older. She said, “It’s weird because basically your body gets older but you still feel the same. The only difference is that now I have more years behind me than I do ahead of me.” Which isn’t really true, or at least not with 100% certainty, she was 40 at the time. But it really stuck with me. Not so much the second half, because thinking about death is weird and bad so I try not to. But the first half feels so true to my experience. (and there is Lynch, again: “Inside we are ageless…it’s the body that is changing around that ageless center.”)
It feels impossible to describe, because I feel the same but I don’t. I feel inifnitely young in a way I did not feel at 16 because at 16 — and yes, I know I keep saying but oh my god you can not imaging how weird almost dying at 16 makes you for the rest of your life — I found out for the first time that I wouldn’t live forever. Which is something all teengers learn I guess, but my experience was a little more abrupt than others. And then in my 20s I was in grad school which is not like being young or alive at all but a secret third thing that’s really bad.
I feel young but I also feel like I’m a version of myself that had to be built and changed and edited over and over again. And 34 isn’t old, I cannot emphasize enough how Not Old 34 is. But it’s older than I ever thought I’d be. It’s old enough that it’s got me thinking about all of this and everything that’s led to it. All the work I’ve done. It was hard, getting here. And now it feels like 34 years of work that I’m actually getting to enjoy.
It’s supposed to be fun. That’s what I’m learning and keep desperately trying to tell people younger than I am even though I always assumed I’d avoid becoming one of those ~older people who tell young people how to do life: it’s supposed to be fun. I’m sorry for how dramatic this all sounds but I think anyone reading this knows how I get around my birthday and will forgive me. And it all feels a little urgent, doesn't it? We’re getting meaner. Online, at the grocery store, wherever. And partly it’s because we’re scared; I know I am. But I have to wonder if everyone is fully aware of how mean and joyless they’ve let themselves become. Even over little things, but a lot of the time those are the things that matter.
But mostly I am sincerely begging everyone: things suck. They’re really bad. Really really bad. They’re probably going to get worse. And then maybe they’ll get better again, I don’t know about that but I have to hope because otherwise what’s the point. But. Life is both really short and really long and you should be having as much fun as you possibly can. Joy and play and curiosity are the most important. They are the most important things. From them: love, and compassion, and care and growth, and strength and tenacity.
Here are some other quotes and bits and bobs I’m carrying with me into my 34th year:
(Kurt Vonnegut)
from my commonplace book
I’m 34 now, which is such a hilariously stupid and wonderful age to be. I’m “in my 30s” but not at or over the hump of 35, which I’m sure will feel significant. I’m further and further away from my 20s but I feel more “in my 20s” than I ever did 10 years ago. It’s wonderful because I almost died at 16 and then when I didn’t, assumed I would die before 30. I keep thinking about something a friend of mine, 10 years older than me, said ages ago in passing when asked how it felt to grow older. She said, “It’s weird because basically your body gets older but you still feel the same. The only difference is that now I have more years behind me than I do ahead of me.” Which isn’t really true, or at least not with 100% certainty, she was 40 at the time. But it really stuck with me. Not so much the second half, because thinking about death is weird and bad so I try not to. But the first half feels so true to my experience. (and there is Lynch, again: “Inside we are ageless…it’s the body that is changing around that ageless center.”)
It feels impossible to describe, because I feel the same but I don’t. I feel inifnitely young in a way I did not feel at 16 because at 16 — and yes, I know I keep saying but oh my god you can not imaging how weird almost dying at 16 makes you for the rest of your life — I found out for the first time that I wouldn’t live forever. Which is something all teengers learn I guess, but my experience was a little more abrupt than others. And then in my 20s I was in grad school which is not like being young or alive at all but a secret third thing that’s really bad.
I feel young but I also feel like I’m a version of myself that had to be built and changed and edited over and over again. And 34 isn’t old, I cannot emphasize enough how Not Old 34 is. But it’s older than I ever thought I’d be. It’s old enough that it’s got me thinking about all of this and everything that’s led to it. All the work I’ve done. It was hard, getting here. And now it feels like 34 years of work that I’m actually getting to enjoy.
It’s supposed to be fun. That’s what I’m learning and keep desperately trying to tell people younger than I am even though I always assumed I’d avoid becoming one of those ~older people who tell young people how to do life: it’s supposed to be fun. I’m sorry for how dramatic this all sounds but I think anyone reading this knows how I get around my birthday and will forgive me. And it all feels a little urgent, doesn't it? We’re getting meaner. Online, at the grocery store, wherever. And partly it’s because we’re scared; I know I am. But I have to wonder if everyone is fully aware of how mean and joyless they’ve let themselves become. Even over little things, but a lot of the time those are the things that matter.
But mostly I am sincerely begging everyone: things suck. They’re really bad. Really really bad. They’re probably going to get worse. And then maybe they’ll get better again, I don’t know about that but I have to hope because otherwise what’s the point. But. Life is both really short and really long and you should be having as much fun as you possibly can. Joy and play and curiosity are the most important. They are the most important things. From them: love, and compassion, and care and growth, and strength and tenacity.
Here are some other quotes and bits and bobs I’m carrying with me into my 34th year:
(Kurt Vonnegut)
from my commonplace book
