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Liz Buechele

Feeling the Exact Age I Am

I read something on social media once about everyone driving slower than you being an idiot and everyone driving faster than you being a maniac. Of course this tracks. When barreling down the highway, you just kind of assume the speed you are going is perfect. Everyone else is just relative to you and your divine acceleration.


Similarly, anyone younger than me is “young” and anyone older than me is “old.” Everyone who cleans a lot more than me, a neat freak; anyone less, a slob. We accept some risk into our lives. Those who push that envelope are reckless daredevils. Those more cautious than us, wallflowers.


We tend to put ourselves at the center of our understanding. We assume that the way we do the thing is the perfect way it should be done. And if we are doing it exactly right, then everyone else must live above or below what we’ve decided is “the norm.” 


And while of course speed limits exist for a reason, there is, perhaps space to live in the grey area in other categories. I can still hear childhood banter amongst siblings, cousins, and neighbors, “who died and made you King!?” That is what I think about now as I laugh at the absurdity of assumption.


I’ve been wanting to write for a while about what it means to feel the exact age I am. That is to say—upon having turned 30 earlier this year—I don’t feel any different than I did last year from an age perspective. Thirty, therefore, was not some defining benchmark of before and after, but rather thirty just became the age I am. So when people asked if I felt 30, I really didn’t know how to respond beyond I feel how old I am.


I drive and dust and dare in a way that makes sense to me. I am exactly how old I am.


How important it is, then, to step back occasionally and remind ourselves that there is no one 30 or 21 or 45. That our baseline is allowed to be our baseline and nothing more. That rather than bemoan the outliers, we could realize that we might be someone’s outlier. That there is no one right standard way of doing things. That maybe our aversion to adventure or our compulsion for cleanliness is okay. That we can decide what our 30 should feel like. 


That we can trust that we are being what we need to be. That there are many ways to find ourselves.


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