thoughts on turning 35...

bridging the gap between adolescent glitter and mature glow

34.

i tried accessing my old blog that i kept throughout my twenties as an online diary. my posts were almost daily but the things i wrote about were scattered and varied. sometimes i would post quotes from authors and poets that made me feel less alone and less crazy when i felt insane. other times, i’d write about dates i went on with men who didn’t really care about me, i didn’t really care about them but i still cared too much about what they thought of me. and weaved between the poetry and the posts expressing my yearning and confusion, i wrote about my abortion and what i imagined life would have been like as a mom. i romanticized the melancholia and the impulsivity and recklessness that you can’t seem to escape at that age, and i wrote of an imaginary life that i believed twenty-something year old me deserved to have. i can’t access my old blog anymore but i think of younger me fondly and with a genuine adoration. she was naive and stupid, despite trying to convince herself and others of the opposite. but most of all, she was hopeful and true. i think that’s what i remember the most about younger me - despite everything, she stayed hopeful none of it would be for nothing.

i stopped smoking cigarettes a couple months ago. i can’t remember how long it’s been exactly but i know it’s been longer than a month. i stopped smoking when i realized they didn’t taste good after i stopped taking adderall. i remember standing on the sidewalk outside my apartment taking a drag of my cigarette, taking another drag and spontaneously deciding it would be my last one forever, then stamping it out with the toe of my shoe. as i walked back up to my apartment, i suddenly remembered i’m turning 35. the realization felt a little jarring. i don’t use retinol and i rarely use sunscreen. what would nicotine do to me on top of everything i should be doing but i’m not?

lately, i’ve been avoiding looking at myself in the mirror. i find myself squinting so my reflection in the mirror is hazy and blurred. if i squint hard enough, i am nothing but a darkened, pixelated dot. when i was a teenager, i used to do my makeup with my shades drawn or the lights dimmed. it made me anxious to look at myself in the mirror with all the lights on because then, nothing could go unnoticed. my mom would tell me i needed more light but i would insist that it was fine. i can see. my idea of myself was so fragile, i was afraid that seeing myself, really really seeing myself, would shatter any illusion i had created about who i was.