Last year when I turned 30, I had high hopes of conquering a once stigmatized decade. It seemed 30 meant your life was over and if you hadn’t already popped out a few kiddos, you might never. You were washed up, dried up, and on the other side of life.

When people started saying “30 is the new 20” – I naively believed. I had a horrible go of things in my 20s, and admittedly I was ready to put the entire era behind me. I met Scott at almost 29, and so life seemed on the upswing.

Last year on my birthday, I had a student (lovingly?) tell me, “The roaring 20’s are over – here comes the Great Depression!”

I laughed at HIS naivety. However, this morning, I’m beginning to think that kid had vision and wisdom beyond his years.

I’m not aging gracefully. I’m fighting it every step of the way but it is still kicking my ass. The gray hair is amassing on my head and the fine lines have begun their journey across my face. My back is so bad that I spend my mornings doubled over as I try to get dressed for work. I am tired by 9PM and between you and me, just started using a pill box to keep all of my vitamins and supplements together. 

I remember a time when I colored my hair because I thought it was cool. I spent 4 years in my late teens and early 20s paying through the nose so I could pretend I had radiant tresses. I wised up and stopped that nonsense when a savings account became a “thing” and embraced what I now believe is a pretty damn nice color.  And what makes me sick is that my color has decided to flee from my scalp at the ripe old age of 30.

There is nothing I want to do LESS than color my hair.

I miss my youthful skin and my back that worked. I miss thinking that by 30 I would have my life straightened out. I miss thinking that I had time to travel and to experience life before the Facebook ads insist if I don’t heed their advice I’ll be barren. Baby this, wrinkle cream that. And freeze my eggs? I think not.

Baz Luhrman nailed it with his song “Everybody’s Free to Wear Sunscreen”: 

You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth
Until they’ve faded but trust me, in 20 years, you’ll look back
At photos of yourself and recall in a way you can’t grasp now
How much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked

 

Perhaps it is the cold and dark of the mid-winter that beckons the blues. The glow of the summer sun has long since faded and the springtime  seems years away. Though I wrote several resolutions for 2015, I think the only one I care for now is letting go of the fear in aging and ticking clocks. 

I know some of you are shaking your head at me thinking I have my entire life ahead, and it is foolish to presume that 30 is old. But what I’m looking for is real, practical advice in order to give up my war against the relentless march of time.

Thoughts?

-Al