coming of age

(30)

When I was 20, my mom told me the gift of my youth was time. The contradiction, she said, is that the older we get, the more money we gain but less time we have to spend. 

So I was determined to make the most of this gift in my 20s. Maybe not every decision was wise, but maybe they were all right. I got my cap and gown, moved cities and apartments, ended a relationship, started my first, second, third jobs. Ran around the world with my friends and stayed out too late, just because we could. And celebrated everything—just because we should. I slowly accepted how some things are destined (and allowed) to change: like my body, friendships, and what I want. Questioned everything I thought I knew. Rediscovered the things that were there all along.

How am I supposed to gracefully move on from a decade that is more forgiving than any other—one that cheers you on even when you don’t know the right answer? And yet, all I know is wanting to move on to the next thing. In a way, I’m still the girl who couldn’t wait to leave her hometown at 18, packing her life away into two suitcases with blind hope that things will always work out the way they’re supposed to. Every year, I realize I’ll never be quite the same person again. Nor do I want to be.

Time changes you. Perhaps that’s also the gift.

Life goes on at 30, and it will still be going on at 40, 50, and so forth. What is living without questioning and its pursuit of rediscovering the “right” answers? Time is more precious now, that’s for sure. But we still have so much of it. The gift of youth may be time, but what if the gift of age is perspective? Possibility is abundant, risk less daunting, and change inevitable. Cheers to aging and all that we are still becoming.