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.

it’s different now, there are no illusions. but i’ve been feeling unfamiliar in my own body and in my own skin. on some days, it’s hard to recognize myself. my body doesn’t feel like mine. my body feels awkward and uncomfortable; my limbs feel stiff and swollen but my stomach and arms feel puffy and loose. my face looks like someone else’s. i dye the grey that comes in the roots of my hair every 4 weeks. i squint in the mirror and see traces of myself, but now i see a woman who is young yet feels old, a little weathered, and tired from living two parallel lives in the last year. one is the one she actually lived and the other is one that existed in her head.

when i was taking adderall, i spent a year convincing myself that i was just a girl, trying to absolve myself of adult responsibilities and reveling in the recklessness and impulsivity reminiscent of my twenties. i had an engagement ring on my finger but i didn’t trust myself to know how to be a wife or even a fianceé. during one trip to los angeles, i left my engagement ring at home. it wasn’t entirely intentional but it wasn’t unintentional either. i had just landed in la when jeremy texted me and asked why i left my ring on my nightstand. his question was simple and straightforward and sounded strangely innocent. it wasn’t angry, it wasn’t accusatory. the sadness in his tone that was conveyed through his simple question was palpable. i didn’t know what to say. i gave him a reason that sounded so fucking stupid and overly lighthearted. it was a non-response. he sounded worried and unconvinced but i told him don’t worry, it’s fine. i’m just a girl. this was the real beginning of the end. i thought about that moment when i was in the shower the other day. i don’t know why i thought of it or why it popped into my head but it made my stomach churn and it hurt my heart with how careless i was with his feelings.

a boy i was dating proposed to me when i was 22 or 23. he proposed to me with a ring i already owned. i said yes but even then, i knew it wasn’t real. it didn’t actually mean anything. i understood the circumstances and how pathetic it all was. it was nothing but a terrible idea that only had an air of romanticism because of how impulsive it was. but when i broke up with him, i was so filled with rage by how i let him treat me so badly, i remember screaming: you ruined what was supposed to be the most meaningful time of my life. it wasn’t true. he didn’t ruin anything because he didn’t matter enough but i was so angry with myself because for a moment, i fooled myself into thinking that maybe this is what i deserved.

i think i convinced myself i was scared to be a wife. i was scared to be the wife in the neighborhood with the nice homes with the nice yards with the 2.5 children, with the dog, with the cat, with the neighbors that all know each other, with the homeowner chatter of are you getting new windows, are you going to paint the house, how is your plumbing, did you see the new tree we planted; i didn’t know what to do with how stable life could be. i felt threatened and suffocated by the stability; i had convinced myself that if i let myself have it, it was something that could be taken away. i told myself that this, real adulthood, was all so boring. in my head, i was still too young for this. adderall made me feel invincible and that the world was in the palm of my hand. i was 33 but told myself i was a girl, rediscovering the girlhood that i had already lived but i wanted to re-live again as an adult. with my heart racing and adderall flowing in my veins, i dyed my hair red. i cut my hair off. i painted freckles onto my face with abandon. i got a tooth gem. i flirted. i wore my ring less. on days where i vacuumed the living room of the house we shared, i would silently fume and tell myself that this wasn’t the life i imagined 33 year old me to be living.

34 is the first year of my thirties i spend alone and single. i spend the year creating and building my own life. i stop trying to escape because i realize i can’t. it’s different than the life i imagined for myself when i was 33. this life is different. this life is real. this life is not glamorous; it’s challenging, a little more lonely, painful and brutal at times, cruel yet gentle, tender and so beautiful. i tend to my apartment. i paint it’s walls. i paint the trim of my windows, first green then buttery yellow. i vacuum the old, scratched hardwood floors every day. i wipe down my counters.

i tend to myself. i stop taking adderall; i feel like i’m dying. i buy dish soap in scents i love (sandalwood, lavender, never grapefruit). i hang fresh eucalyptus from my shower head. i sit with myself in my own silence. i am sober and i finally feel awake and i properly grieve everything that happened in the last year. i’m still grieving. i fill an empty glass mason jar with flowers that i buy from trader joe’s. i water my plants in the mornings. i casually date and then i stop dating entirely. the idea of sex repulses me. i drink coffee in bed with a lot of brown sugar and cinnamon. i don’t wash my coffee pot as often as i should. i let dishes pile in the sink some nights. i spend hours cleaning out my closet and my kitchen. i worry about my plants. i make my bed every morning. i check my bank account. i avoid checking my bank account. i pay my parking tickets. i walk down the flight of stairs to do my laundry. i stand and eat a lazy dinner at my kitchen counter. i eat in bed. i grocery shop with headphones in. i laugh while watching a movie or listening to a podcast. i fall asleep with the tv on. i leave all my windows open. when i talk on the phone, i speak loudly because it’s just me; there is no need for privacy. i dye my hair in my bathroom. i dye it back to brown/black. i sweat profusely while rearranging my apartment. i manage my anxiety by taking too many showers. i keep my mailbox key in a special place so i don’t lose it and i check my mail. i cry while watching videos of cleo in my phone. i let the day go by without doing a thing. the daylight changes from bright to dim to dark. i go out to dinner with jeremy. we apologize for the amount of hurt we caused each other. we hold each other’s hands over the table knowingly and silently. at the restaurant bar, i cry into my wine as he rubs the knuckles of my hand with his thumb. i say i am sorry. i let myself weep out my sadness. sometimes it feels bad to say i’m sorry and other times, it feels right. i sit on my fire escape and i understand that sometimes i am not a good person. sometimes i am selfish and cruel and i am immature and i am impulsive. i thought i was better than that but there aren’t illusions when you’re in your thirties.

i daydream. i daydream about what that life would have looked like if i wasn’t so obsessed with how adderall made my appetite disappear and how it made me feel like i could do anything and everything. i daydream about what things would look like if i wasn’t so fucking scared of stability and being my father’s daughter and i wonder if my life would have been challenging and lonely and beautiful and brutal in a way that all felt worth it if i had just truly understood what it meant to build a life with someone. sometimes i go there. before i fall asleep at night, i close my eyes and i picture myself in that life. i am there. the weeds need to be picked, there is laundry that needs to be folded, the floors need to be vacuumed, there are weekends of doing nothing, there are neighbors to say hello to and sometimes it is terribly fucking boring but it’s warm and there is love and it’s real. none of it is ever for nothing.

my birthday is the first week of april and i think about what i want for myself at 35. i think about how it feels significantly older. there is something about it that feels demanding but in a way that feels honest and real. i want my hair to grow long. i want to settle into the way my body has changed and recovered. i want to look in the mirror and recognize myself. i want to build a life. i want to grow up. i want to feel alive. i want to meld all the versions of who i am. i don’t want to be scared. i don’t want to escape. i want to just be. i want to feel this age.

i’m not just a girl, anymore.