Forever 29

In a week, I will officially enter my mid-thirties and I’ll be the first to admit that I am extremely uneasy with this inevitable slide into a nomenclature that carries a decided level of societal expectations.

I was really freaked out when I turned 25. My father had been killed a month earlier, I was in a back-breaking job and I had not achieved any level of personal or professional success. One year and one week from now, I’ll be 35 and I’m once again overwhelmed by my own expectations for where I think I should be in my life.

I’ve never been to Europe, I’ve spent half almost half my life steeped in debt, I’ve only had one significant relationship with a man, and my creative identity seems to be sputtering. It’s kind of grim. Not exactly hopeless – I have a great extended group of friends and my current job affords me some wonderful social opportunities. But there is a slowly gathering malaise when I think about living alone.

It’s just very hard – or at least it is for me. It’s hard to cook for one, to keep one’s laundry perfectly cleaned and pressed, to keep the bathroom tidy and keep my bills paid on time. It’s hard for me to find time to read, blog, workout, clean, shop for cute clothes, take photographs, make art, call my mom, work, be social, have time to just stare out into space. Sometimes, I get very boggled by all the things I want to do. I sometimes wonder how other people do it, and being a tad over-critical, I feel as if I’m just a big-huge failure.

With so many things and people that add value to my life, I’m starting to consider that something has to go. Some sort of housecleaning is in order – in both my internal and external worlds. And that is, perhaps, the thing that makes me profoundly sad. It has been often said that you cannot have it all. When I was young, I didn’t believe that adage, but as I seriously contemplate my life, I am slowly coming to believe that in trying to achieve balance, the scales of what-you-do have and what-you-don’t have to be level.

For me, it’s a decision of what to let go…….and I’ve never been very good at subtraction.