older, not any wiser

i turned 26 yesterday

A brief interaction with a coworker twice my age right before I clock out to rush home and pack for Venice somehow turns into a cathartic kick-off for my birthday week.

“So, how old are you turning?”

“Twenty…six. Twenty-six..” I stutter and seem visibly tense. Not because the question caught me off guard — it’s just that this kind of number sounds unnatural and too foreign to say out loud. I presume he’s going to respond with something that will unintentionally haunt me for the rest of the week. Either oh wow, all grown up or you’re so young! both of which are somehow equally terrifying to hear. I don’t know why I’m having such trouble with it, why naming a double-digit feels like walking on razor blades. It’s just a number, after all, is it not? No. 26 is closer to 30 than 20. I’m sweating through my flesh, the same one I’ve been imprisoned in for a quarter of a century now. Teetering on the edge of your early twenties is not a lovely place to be when you haven’t danced with adulthood long enough to be a natural. I hate all of this. Getting older is a privilege, blah blah, don’t care. Privileges can very much suck!

“That’s awesome. I hope you enjoy this one.”

A wave of relief. What a perfect, concise answer. I exhale. So simple and clean, like a reception desk at the dentist, or the smell of a chlorinated pool. Peace-instilling, paternal almost. I wish the voices in my head were as nonchalant as this guy.

I don’t remember truly enjoying my birthday past the age of 12. The existential dread I’ve felt for over a decade can be attributed to a laundry list of things, some of which are having to grow up too young, being the oldest kid, or just another case of your good old Slavic upbringing where everything comes with an implied obligation. I grasp onto my youth firmly, with such hunger and persuasion that I can never imagine letting go. I’m too anxious about the future to be grateful for all the gifts from my past: the acquired wisdom and experiences. Now, at 26, I feel like I’m supposed to stop fucking around and finding out, and start getting serious about my life. Though I’ve never not been serious and I haven’t fucked around nearly enough, so I don’t really know how I’m supposed to do that. Life is sure a divine comedy, and my twenties are an endless Purgatorio.

My aversion to the passage of time, and the paralyzing fear it fuels, is rooted in all the things I was somehow sure I would’ve done by now but haven’t. Everything starts to feel like I’d missed a few trains, except I’m also standing on the wrong platform at the wrong station on a cold night, all glammed up with no ticket to anywhere. I’m perplexed, really: what are those things? Can I name them? Can I get a bit more particular? No. What did I think was going to happen to me by 26? I’m not sure how I envisioned this stage of life, but certainly not this way. More sophisticated, maybe. More grandeur, occupying all the space in the world and then some. Leaving a lasting impression when I walk into the room. Taking a stance. With each new number added to my time on earth, the distance between myself and those things grows. Should I tap into my youth more? Should I make the most of it? Should I be going to more clubs? Should I have slept around more? Or less? Should I be doing drugs or working harder while my body can still handle both? Can somebody explain what ‘live to the fullest’ even means? Sounds like a lot of work.

And then there’s other things… Things that I was certain, on the contrary, would be long gone by now — sort of little adolescent quirks and shortcomings I was meant to shake off eventually. But yeah, you guessed it, I haven’t. Feeling uncomfortable and overstimulated in large groups of people; getting a shaky voice when I’m presenting; or destroying my cuticles when I’m anxious — these are just some of them. Feeling better in my body, too. I could be more well-spoken by now. What I do should matter more — how I do it should be effortless. The thoughts I’m having should be those of an adult, not a child imitating a teenager imitating an adult. Here I am, realizing that most of what I dread about myself is just part of who I am. Wherever you go, there you are. I’m literally still 5’3. I just learned how investing works. I have enough buccal fat to last me a few winters, still.

No matter how painful the fear of getting older gets, if there’s one thing I shall not do ever again it's try and turn back time. It 1) doesn’t work 2) leaves grimy scars. Two years ago I attempted to, quite literally, perform CPR on my youth by reconnecting with someone from childhood. Not only was it a shortsighted, rushed affair resulting in an explosive emotional bloodbath, I’m still living through the repercussions of it every day, as some of my precious adolescent memories are now forever contaminated, rotten by mere association. Thrown to the wolves for mildly entertaining stifling. I was craving immortality, I think. Someone should’ve warned me that the obsession with turning back time can make you into a desperate woman, and it doesn’t really matter which way you go about it. Some filler injections would’ve been a better investment.

Time isn’t your friend, but it’s certainly not your punisher. Aging is relative — I only ever get paranoid about the beauty aspect of it when I spend too much time online. No wonder: our younger counterparts, particularly those who grew up with iPads, will call anyone above the age of 18 geriatric. A 22-year-old once told me I looked “surprisingly” good for my age and it made me want to die. Most days, though, I’m surrounded by my colleagues in their forties and fifties, and the majority of my friends are older. They all keep telling me how lucky I am to be so young, so full of life. I don’t share the sentiment as I don’t feel particularly lucky, but it’s a refreshing perspective. If I could suggest just one way of making your life a little more pleasant and manageable, I’d tell you to surround yourself with regular people of different ages in the real world. You start to remember that most online discourse isn’t real. Women of all decades look incredible. ‘Hitting the wall’ is not a thing outside of Twitter and Reddit — you can exhale.

Maybe we don’t get to decide how we feel about aging at all. It can be both anxiety-inducing and a wonderful thing. Two things can— and often will— be true at the same time: you can be lost and have purpose. You can be wise beyond your years and a big sad loser in arguments. You can have it all on paper and still feel unsafe and unstable. You can date around but crave the kind of love that feels distant and inaccessible. You can be persuasive and a terrible flirt. You can be fit and healthy without counting everything that goes in your mouth. You can hate certain people but hold enough compassion to understand they’re only trying their best, just like you. You can suffer immensely without bending backward trying to bestow some sort of celestial heaven-sent meaning upon your pain. You can have miserable days, weeks, even years, and still be grateful for the life you have.

So, what’s in store for this year? Not sure, but I’m excited. People raise eyebrows at me when I say I have no goals. I used to say it for shock value, but the older I get, the more it crystallizes. I have no aspirations, no five-year plan, not even a bucket list. That’s not how I operate. I run on intuition, morals, and desire; I try to rely on my inner compass and do more of what feels right, less of what feels wrong. I also know that I’m naturally driven enough to not need a Notion calendar or self-help content to get shit done and get it done well. As I’d spent most of my life trying to control everything around me and every little step I took in any direction —not really out of choice, more as a means to safety— my only goal for 26 is to control as little as possible. Disengage from the ubiquitous noise and the chatter, and just exist without looking over my own shoulder all the damn time.

I’m 26, and I don’t have everything I’ve ever wanted. I accept that I may never reach a point where I have everything I’ve wanted. Sometimes all of this fucking sucks and I ask “Should I kms” half-jokingly at least twice a month and my skin-picking is out of control and I’m lucky if I feel more secure by the time I’m 30. But I’m in Venice. I have incredible, intelligent friends. I filed my tax return. I know where to draw the line. I try to be kind and helpful even when it threatens my ego. My little brother thinks of me highly. I don’t run away from pain — I write about it.

Maybe there are no trains to wait for. Maybe I’ll enjoy this one after all.

P.S. My last essay got a bit of momentum and club reticent has grown almost 3x in size. The perfect birthday gift in the digital abyss. Thank you, thank you, thank you.