If you’re ever feeling blue about being 42
To me — if I ever really get this old
We all joke about the ways our perspective on age skews as we become older. Elementary school students view teenagers as ancient, 20-somethings can’t even imagine themselves as middle-aged, 40 years old is the new 30, when did 30-somethings start looking like kids? Then you learn that those geezers on Cheers were in their mid-30s when the television show first aired, can you believe it? Even Cliff the grizzled old postman was only 35 years old! Cliff!
I’ve cracked into my middle-school journals for the first time in three decades, and it’s been quite the ride. Although I authored these dusty volumes and for some reason decided to save them, I doubt I’ve ever read them before. The text was too cringe-worthy to revisit even when I was young. Is there a worse age, for anyone, than 13? It’s best for everyone that these years are mostly forgotten.
Yet, when I read these journals through a wizened perspective that appreciates the folly and comedy of life, there are gems hidden in the trash fire. There was this bit of smarmy wisdom from my eighth-grade self that amounted to, “sure, 22-year-olds are hot but old people are smarter.”
The “over the hill timeline” presents age 0-20 as a long climb with the steepest pitch at “Adolescence: Hardest part, maybe.” The peak of 30-60 is “Middle age. Best part of life. Top of the mountain.” And then it’s a rocky descent into the “bumpy, uneven part” of old age and a cliff at age 90 — optimistic longevity, my child, but I get what you’re saying. I should enjoy my time near the summit I’ve worked so hard — or at least lived long enough — to achieve. And I should not feel blue about being 42.
I try to imagine what I’d say to this 13-year-old who dared impart her childish perspective on her future, presumably smarter, self. It’s funny to consider how adolescents view 40-something adults and what they believe will be their biggest challenges when they reach this far-off age: Wrinkles, feeling ugly, paying taxes, complaining about old bones. No one really helps you understand, when you’re young, the full scope of the challenges in your path:
• The longer you live, the more loss you experience. Rather than becoming more bearable, each loss just adds to the emotional weight we carry. Grief is accumulative over a lifetime.
• The longer you live, the more scars you sustain. Health and wellness require a continuous effort to manage the accumulative physical and emotional scars of injury and illness.
• Health is also mostly a matter of winning the genetic and environmental lottery. There will never be a shortage of experts insisting that if you only gave up eating meat or ate only meat or changed the way you breathe, all of your problems would be solved. As though our problems aren’t individual and infinitely complex. And yes, of course, make good choices. Eat your vegetables and all that. But just know that if you’re healthy, it’s a lucky break and not a reward for moral goodness. Enjoy every second of good health; there’s nothing more valuable in life.
• In that regard, wrinkles aren’t all that big of a deal. But if you believe that you’ll ever reach a pinnacle of either beauty or confidence that will allow you to stay comfortable in your own skin, you’re (probably) wrong about that, too.
• Someday you’ll realize that there are no actual adults in charge and no one is coming to save you. This truth is more terrifying than you could even imagine.
• Life is hard. It just keeps getting harder. As a 42-year-old, I like to believe that eventually, we reach a point of acceptance. We understand that for all of its ugliness, life is overwhelmingly beautiful. And we finally figure out how to fully embrace the joy that walks hand-in-hand with grief. This progression takes time, which is why the classic Happiness Curve works as an inverse of the one you presented:
Of course, if I ever stepped into an alternate universe where I could sit down with my 13-year-old self, I wouldn’t bother to lecture her on anything. Life experience has forced shifts in my perspective, but I’m wise enough to understand that this is hardly the pinnacle of knowledge. I don’t have any more answers than she did. All I have is a self-drawn map to guide me through middle age, but my trajectory is different than hers. I could tell her everything I know about her future, and she’d likely still make all of the same mistakes.
So what would I do if I could sit down with my 13-year-old self? If I’m being honest, I’d probably pepper her with questions. But also veiled advice:
• What’s your favorite band? Aerosmith? Oh no, girl. No, no, no.
• Has Dad taken you hiking yet? Seriously, take every opportunity you get. Every single one.
• What do you want to be when you grow up? I know you think you have a set path in front of you, but most of it is going to turn out different than you expect. Be grateful for that, but also prepared.
• “Child, your journals are bad. Have you thought about writing what you’re actually seeing and experiencing rather than complaining about chores and name-dropping various boys that you’re not even going to remember in 30 years?”
I could go on all day with this. It is an interesting thought experiment, to consider the ways our entire selves shift and change over time. For this reason, I shouldn’t fear the oldster I’m becoming or will truly be if I’m lucky enough to live 42 more years. She’ll be a different person with a different perspective. I also believe she’ll have to carry a lifetime of grief and scars I can scarcely understand, the way my 13-year-old self could hardly understand what I feel now. But to me, age 84, if I ever really get this old: Thanks for hanging in there.
I love that you kept journals and that you're revisiting them! Appreciate your perspective.
jill, I'm 62 now and definitely have some scars...both mental and physical! My mom. who is 90 always tells me..things can change. ...so you just change the plan but not the goal.