July 29, 2005
29
I know it’s cliché to remark on things like the weather or the speed of time, but seriously, where did July go? I’ve been 29 for 29 days and so far, so good. Old school readers may remember a theory I posited a few years ago on how my even years are always better than my odd. (For example, the year I was 20 was fantastic but 21 was awful. 24 was terrific, 17 sucked.) I was looking forward to putting 25 to rest, and was hoping that 26 would put light and easiness back into my life. In many ways it did – I finally landed a full-time job and was able to quit waitressing and I began to feel more at home in Atlanta. But in the end, over these last few years in my late 20s, I finally learned a universal truth about life – it doesn’t care how old you are. Life is going to throw heartache and happiness and joy and sorrow and giddiness and boredom at you no matter what your age. I was doing myself a disservice, cataloging my ages based on what happened in that calendar year. Yes, some periods in my life have been infinitely harder than others. I’ve been decimated by heartbreak, buoyed by kindness and loved so much that it’s embarrassing and all of those things have happened, and will continue to happen, no matter how old I am.
I have now lived in Atlanta almost as long as I lived in Columbus, Ohio. I’m now old enough that I have to stop and think hard about when things happened or how old I was. Did I move in 2002 or 2003? Was I 25? Okay, what is 2002 minus 1976…? Was I really only 24 when I went to Spain? I’m finally old enough that when I think about Miami it’s with a kind smile, instead of that heady rush of longing and nostalgia. Is it because my life here fills me in the way that it should that I no longer dream of my days in Oxford? Or perhaps it is another aspect of aging: you feel too separate from the younger version of yourself to miss her much.
It doesn’t hurt that my birthday this year was so enormously wonderful that it makes it hard to be wistful about the past and what I may be leaving behind as I approach 30. There were so many parties and meals out that my friend Catherine’s husband said, “Wait – when is Hannah’s birthday exactly?” (I took the concept of the Birthday Month literally.)
I don’t dread 30. Granted, it’s weird to think that women I’ve known since they were teenagers are about to enter an entirely new decade, but I still don’t dread it. So much, so fantastically much, happened to me as a girl in her early 20s and as 20-something woman. So fantastically much has happened just in the past two years that I would be a fool to dread what lies ahead.
They say that the older you get, the more you figure out who you are and you become more comfortable in your own skin. I don’t know who they are (does anyone?) but as well all know, they’re right.
Posted by hannah at 11:51 AM
i understand this perfectly. i turned 29 in march, and i feel that i am whoever i was meant to be, no matter what happened along the way. the person that i used to recognize as myself is someone i no longer am, and i'm ok with that. that girl had her time and place, and while there are shades of that girl in me, the older adult me is a wonderful person too. and it's ok that i sometimes find grays in my hair (alright, that's never really ok, but i deal) & the person in the mirror looks a little different. i've crossed over to the old people's world according to a teen's definition of old, i'm worlds and lightyears away from my former selves, but it's ok. by everybody else's standards we are still young but life is good. i don't miss the things i thought i might.
welcome to the world of the well-adjusted! and 29.
Posted by erin on July 30, 2005 02:30 AM
