Birthday Insights
From head to toe: American Apparel top, Banana Republic maxi skirt,Tory Burch satchel, JCrew gold link bracelet, Sam Edelman sandal stiletos
This month I celebrated my 22nd birthday (I know, I know – cue the Taylor Swift), but before I could even blow out my birthday candles, I began to feel a sort of pressure, a feeling of angst that hasn’t left me since.
Just like the painfully awkward process of puberty, adulthood is a season of life one gradually enters. For most, there isn't one single day on which you become an adult, at least not in this day and age; there’s no official milestone signaling your complete transition into life as a real grown-up.
And really, what is a grown-up? It can't simply be a matter of one’s chronological age; I've met a few people over 40 who remind me of my high school self.
Does adulthood mean you live alone or with a significant other, in a fancy condo with questionably high pool fees? Does it mean you have a job in an office and routinely do laundry on Saturdays? Does it mean you've had too many regrettable experiences with tequila, and now exclusively sip gin on nights when you're feeling frisky? I'm not sure.
When I was young, my siblings teased me for my old soul. "You're a forty-year-old woman, Emily! Stuck inside an 8-year-old's body!" How cruel, you may be thinking. And yes, horribly mean, I know! But I have to agree with them; I loved watching episodes of Martha Stewart Living and picking up my imaginary kids in the backyard after their (and my own) day at school. I liked wearing sweater sets and genuinely looked forward to the day when I could exhale the words, "kids, today," while rolling my eyes, and have others commiserate rather than laugh hysterically.
While I'll jokingly admit that I've been middle-aged for over a decade now, I really feel quite infantile at the moment. I've never been as old as I am today, but I've never felt younger than I feel now.
Perhaps that's because age is like intelligence; as Socrates advocated, the more you learn, the more you realize you don't know. The smartest people, according to the Greek philosopher, are the ones who acknowledge how little they know. I suppose that's due to the way one's perspective expands over time. As one grows and learns, one realizes that life, and the universe surrounding it, is frighteningly vaster than one had previously conceived. So maybe that's it; maybe the older we get, the younger we feel.
You spend your entire childhood dreaming of the privileges you'll receive in adulthood: buying fruit loops on your own accord, staying up past midnight, wearing high heels that go click-clack, and you assume that by the time you're as ancient as 22, you'll have all the answers.
And then you turn 22. And you have kinda, maybe, sorta, like three and a half answers. And that's it.
Humans have one of the longest childhoods of any species. In North America, many parents bring their kin along for more than two decades, until those kiddos finally have the stability required to flee the nest. Compare that timeline to the childhood of our fellow mammal, the lion, which reaches full maturity, hunts, reproduces and fashions a full mane in 3-5 years.
We, as humans, spend so much time learning, developing ties within our society, and slowly gaining independence. We spend so many years looking forward to adulthood, and we assume that after about 20 years or so, after all that time being a child, we'll be all ready for adulthood, ready for life as a grown-up.
I think that's where this pressure I mentioned, is coming from, for me. I've spent a long time looking forward to grown-up life, a long-time brainstorming what my life would be like as a fabulous 22-year-old living in the city, à la Carrie Bradshaw and her equally glamorous gal pals.
But that’s the thing about life; images in the mirror are actually further away than they appear. 22 isn’t ancient, as I’ve recently discovered, and Sarah Jessica Parker’s character was in her late thirties when Sex and the City aired, not her early 20s.
Age is elusive. When I was younger, I assumed anyone over the age of twenty had their life figured out, but it’s reassuring to realize that, at least for the human species, those in their twenties are granted a little bit of lee-way in terms of being considered a fully-adjusted adult. People accept that I am still learning, that I have a ways to go, and that the brain’s Dorsal Lateral Pre-Frontal Cortex doesn’t fully develop until age 25 (still in school mode, if you hadn’t noticed).
I think with age comes greater patience with oneself and the willingness to forgive oneself for not measuring up to past trajectories of success, which, derived in one’s own immaturity, are nothing short of fiction. For a while I thought 65 was old, and yes, for those in lesser health, old age can be of the essence by that time, but with my parents nearing that age now, it really doesn’t seem old at all. I’m not just saying this because I love her; if I met my mum at the grocery store today I’d assume she was 45 at most.
All this is to say that age is a number, not a metric by which to measure one’s togetherness, or success or quality as a being. And just as your parents assure you about puberty, individuals reach different milestones at different times.
My pubescent self did not appreciate this notion, even though now, braless life seems like such a luxury! I digress. The point is that adulthood, as much as we fantasize about it as a fixed state when we are younger, is a long winding road of personal evolution, and one that I have just begun walking down. No wonder I feel infantile. I am an infant adult.