I Recommend Listening to Four-Calender Cafe' by Cocteau Twins While You Read This
Know Who You Are At Every Age
When I was a little kid, (and I am going to assume a lot of little kids think like this) I thought of adults as completely different kinds of humans. Adults laughed at things that weren’t funny to me, they were allowed to watch movies that I couldn’t watch, and adults generally talked about things that I didn’t understand. Of course there are the stories from when they were kids but, I was hearing stories all day long in school, in my own books I was reading, and from friends. It often just sounded like a cool story starring The Adult That I Know. Little Lily had an imagination. My and my best friend would pretend to be fairies that had to cross a rushing river which was actually just us jumping on the trampoline. I would never play that game with my parents. They wouldn’t understand because they have adult brains! Now that I am an adult, it’s so interesting to me to realize that my brain that I had when I was little, is in fact, the same brain I have now. Little Lily is so surprised!
A week before my 25th birthday in June, I had a really intense depressive episode that lasted for about a week. I rarely left my room and barely spoke to anyone. I was so worried about my birthday being ruined if I continued feeling so bad. I told my therapist after it had come and gone and she told me that it was most likely my body’s way of grieving something that I had lost. Which could be the place that I thought I would be when I turned 25. You have all these plans when you are younger and sometimes they happen in order and sometimes they don’t. When asked, I honestly couldn’t recall what my dream life at 25 was, but for that week before my birthday, I still felt like a failure. It was like my ego had tied me to a chair and showed me a list of all the things that I should’ve accomplished by now and still hadn’t. After talking to my family and friends about how I had been feeling and finally believing the things they were saying about me and listening to their advice, I felt like I had accepted being 25. I also have to remind myself that it’s okay to grieve the life that you thought you were going to have at every point in your life. Just remember to also keep on going.
Now, my 25th year isn’t long enough! I keep thinking about how I only get to be 25 for one year! There is so much my 25 year old self wants to do. She will always be special to me. I made a pact with myself that I will feel this way every year from now on. I’ve been thinking a lot about aging. Especially the connotations that come with being a woman aging. It has always felt negative. It’s like something we should be running away and hiding from which, in general, is something I’m really good at. I hate things that I can’t control. Unfortunately, I really really can’t control the passing of time. But, no one can and this seems to be the root of a lot of problems. Why are we as women discouraged from enjoying the passing of time? Aging is something that has brought me so much happiness and knowledge and pain and love. In short, I have loved the act of experiencing, reminiscing, learning, and then sharing my knowledge. It is my greatest joy! I never want to hear a woman talk negatively about her age or her aging body simply because she is a women conditioned to do so. Change the narrative! The past must stay in the past or else we will hurt our necks from turning away from what’s in front of us! It would be much easier to walk backwards if that’s what we were meant to do! Simply turn around and make it your future.
Getting older is hard, yes but, think of it like a first edition copy of Wuthering Heights or Pride and Prejudice. Treat yourself with more and more special care each year that you grow. Make yourself feel more valuable than you did the year before. Little Lily didn’t care about first edition books or wrinkles or age spots but, she did care about hearing peoples stories. So, everyday I try to be more like Little Lily.
