On January 4, I turned 20 years old, which isn’t really that significant of a birthday, I guess, in comparison to one’s 18th or 21st birthday, but for some reason I woke up feeling different that morning. Before this birthday I was often forgetting that I wasn’t already in my 20s. I think that once you start college, your life becomes so future oriented that it’s easy to lose sight of where you’re actually at in life. And so each time I remembered I was still a teenager, I would become gripped with this feeling of panic. I was so worried about my 20s slipping away from me that I wanted to post-pone starting them at all.
I’m definitely afraid of aging. And maybe this is an overgeneralization, but I feel that everyone must be on some level. It’s synonymous with being afraid of the unknown. And even if you’ve achieved self-actualization or whatever and are completely okay living in the moment with absolutely no fear of the future… the unknown still has to make you feel something. Excitement, anticipation, fear, or general discomfort. I think it has to evoke a feeling in everyone.
Turning 20 made me stop and think over my attitude toward aging, though. Getting out of bed on my birthday, I became aware of how much time I still have ahead of me. I mean, the last time I entered a new decade of life, I was 10. I had a cat themed birthday party in my childhood home in a state my family hasn’t stepped foot in for years. I was in the middle of rehearsing for my school’s production of Beauty and the Beast Jr. In most regards, I was a completely different person. Thinking about how much change and growth happened in that decade made me realize how much is still to come. It eased the anxious voice counting down the seconds until my life shrivels up like the years that wasted away.
I think it’s possible to let it all fly by you the moment the rose-tinted glasses of your youth fall off and you enter a far less romantic version of life and the world. But at the same time, if you actively choose to be a participant in life and not a spectator, you make the choice to live your life in that child-like way. If you cling to possibility, newness, and change– if you invite growth in even when it takes the form of struggle, conflict, or challenges– you maintain the ability to actually live.
I suppose none of that is grounded in any factuality, but I’m choosing to believe in it. I think the biggest realization I had upon turning 20 was that time is going to pass whether we want it to or not. I am going to age, no matter what. And at the end of the day, I’m still me even as my age changes year after year. In 10 years, I’ll wake up and I’ll be 30. And that’ll be that and life will go on and there’s no reason to be afraid of it.
I hope everyone’s having a happy new year. Talk to you next week,
Julia
