Birthday Reflection Series: Age

[This started as one post, but it felt overly long and I found myself persistently not posting it, so I decided to break it into three easily digestible chunks. Enjoy!]

Two weeks ago, I turned 28. (Or, if you're in the theatre industry, 27 again.) That makes this a good time for looking back/taking stock for three reasons: age, location, and blogging. I'm in London currently, but in 4 days I'll be back in New York, permanent-style, and drastic moves (or even less-drastic moves) tend to inspire reflection. Also, my (slowish) return to blogging has had me combing through my own archives, rereading old posts and thinking about how I've changed since I wrote them. So, in case you're interested:

Age

Twenty-seven was my scary age. For whatever reason, it was the first time in my life I was unhappy about getting older. It wasn't entirely the age itself, but also the fear that I wouldn't be where I was supposed to be at that age. I set goals: by my 27th birthday, I had to have STARTED something--the options being grad school, a career, or a serious relationship. Those things, to me, indicated progress, growth. As the big day reared, things were looking good: I was in grad school, in my chosen career field, and I had just started dating someone whom I (erroneously) believed had LTR potential. When I woke up on my birthday I was a little depressed for a few hours, but then it passed and I had a lovely week of festivities*.

Twenty-eight brought no such fears, either in theory or as it approached. There are various possibilities as to why: my 27th year was a lot better and more engaging than the last few months of my 26th, one or two people in the theatre industry had told me that I was at a good place in my career trajectory, when people tried to guess my age they guessed 25 anyway, and when the day came around there'd been some lovely recent developments in my personal life. But most likely, the Fear of 27 was the aberration, brought on by life uncertainty that I then got over a bit. And I have progressed, or potentially progressed, in a few important ways, so that's always nice.

My psychopharmacologist once told me that she wished she could put everyone to sleep at age 18 and wake them up again when they turned 30--because the 20s suck. Someone else once said that your 20s are about figuring out what you want, and your 30s are about figuring out how to get it. Which makes one's 30s sound a little less like a cake walk, but still--I have figured out a lot of what I want, and, as a result, good things are starting to happen in both my personal and professional lives. It's shaping up to be a very interesting year.



*My birthday celebrations typically involve at least 3 events. My 27th included: cake with extended family in Virginia, dinner at a nice restaurant with my dad and sister (my mom had something important), cake with them plus mom, Official Fun Bar Party with all my friends, and a small dinner party with my oldest friends and the out-of-towners who couldn't make the bar party. This year involved bar party, fancy family dinner outing, drunken Mexican food hijinks with my housemates from Junior year (aka the awesomest year), and being taken to my first British panto by my flatmate over here.