018: A look back and a look forward

a birthday reflection through time

Mar 04, 2023

Hello, and happy March!

They say that after you turn 21, your birthdays become less of a big deal.1 While I mostly agree, this year feels worth celebrating. Not only have I changed the most this year since my college days, but also my birthday also coincidentally falls at the end of my sabbatical, which was a huge growth arc for me. I also feel apprehensive about getting older (and feeling older), which too is worth processing and acknowledging.

It's my birthday give me attention | Happy Birthday Memes ... — I feel like this meme when I draw attention to my birthday

At work today, we were talking about how a test to see if you’re Millennial or Gen Z is if you know Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as a wrestler or an actor. Since I didn’t pass the sniff test (me: Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson once had hair?!), I’ll fully out myself by mentioning that today’s piece is partly inspired by a TikTok I saw, based on the short story “Eleven” by Sandra Cisneros:

If getting older is about collecting more perspectives, I can’t agree more. Today’s piece is a look back at some memories from when I was younger, with some observations on how I’ve changed.

Written on Caltrain on a rainy day, listening to Ghibli lullabies. It feels simultaneously new and nostalgic to write as I watch the cities pass by, even though I’ve ridden this route so many times I know the stops by heart.

I remember starting my first job at 22, and being confused at how there were so many folks who were in their 2nd or 3rd career in my class starting alongside me. I was fresh out of college and felt so “ahead” as I climbed the career ladder voraciously, chasing my early promotions and certifications, proud of the fast growth and trajectory of my professional life.

There was one woman I talked to in my start class, 27 and just married, who used to work at a suicide prevention call center and did a master's degree to pivot. Everything about her past and personality differed from mine. She seemed like the type who didn’t want to chat unless she needed something work related… yet here we were, carpooling to an inventory count (which, for those who are unfamiliar, is the Big 4’s way of hazing first year auditors).2

I’d asked her why she wanted to work in accounting, and why she made such a big change. Perhaps she was annoyed at the subtext of my question—the belief that saving lives was so much more noble and glamorous than accounting, where we effectively earned minimum wage as first years. Still, the monotony of the drive led her to answer me.

“I got too tired, and I didn’t want to shoulder other people’s burdens anymore. I have a husband now, and I wanted to create a stable life. Accounting is a perfect profession for that, and EY is a great company.”

I forgot about her when I turned 27, and I wonder why I remember her now. Perhaps it’s because I’m now at a point where I feel both desires—a youthful one driven by passion and hunger, and and an older one that craves serenity and stability.

Earlier this year, one of my former coworkers and I were catching up after we’d both left Forward and were taking breaks in our career. I shared how I was struggling between wanting to be inspired by work yet also scared of feeling disappointed again, and needing to accept that I quickly needed to find an income and provide for myself… and wondering why it was so hard for me to accept the natural rhythm of adult life the way that others so easily have.

In case you’re curious where we ate. Joodooboo is awesome!

“I feel that so hard,” he said. “It’s like that quote in Jujitsu Kaisen, where Nanami says, ‘Finding more fallen hairs on your pillow, watching your favorite stuffed bread disappear from the convenience store… The accumulation of those little despairs is what makes a person an adult.’” I don’t like the idea of despairs nor accumulating them. In this regard I wonder if I’m refusing to grow up, or if I’m trying to accept that I already have—and then I realize that I’ve been doing both.

My relationship is one area where I’ve noticed this duality. At 22, I had a serious boyfriend at the time who had mentioned marriage several times. His mom warned him that people don’t stop maturing until they’re 24. She was right and wrong at the same time—she was right that we weren’t meant for each other, but she was wrong about my capacity for change. Since our breakup and dating other folks, I learned a lot about what I both wanted and didn’t want in a partner, but overall grew more jaded as I got older. I grew uncertain about whether I even wanted to get married or start a family. I was scared of having a family fall apart or be the reason it failed—to the point that I’d almost given up on the idea, discouraged by all the disappointment I had both received and given in the past.

Children have a lot of faith, a bold, risky action driven by belief. In that respect I’ve become more like a child; I started acting out of the faith that I could be fully myself and be accepted and loved for who I was. I didn’t realize how many masks I had collected over the years and how good I’d gotten at putting on the perfect one to please the audience in front of me. James was the one person who I was just myself around and stopped having to calculate who I wanted to show up as. When I started to fall hard for James last year, I got scared again—I didn’t want him to see and be hurt by my imperfections. However, he decided that he still wanted to try his hardest and commit to our relationship, regardless of how difficult it might be. At 27, I decided to take a chance on love again, with someone motivated enough to take the leap first and kind enough to hold my hand as I try too. My biggest lesson to grow into was fully accepting that relationships involve finite, flawed people, and how we can choose to accept and love them anyway.

One of my favorite photos of us, from a trip when we first started dating 🥹

At 29, now, we’ve been living together for almost two years. It’s funny how in letting go of the idea that a partner could hold your hopes and happiness actually brings about the opposite effect—and in this aspect, I feel like I’ve grown more youthful, able to dream again and get excited about my hopes for our future.

I’m also thankful of the ways that time has matured me. I think of 23-year old me, bemoaning the fact that my closest friends were all in Los Angeles and New York. There was one night I felt particularly disconnected, and I got into a random Facebook conversation with the older brother of a girl I used to be close with growing up. He was close to the age I am now, kind enough to answer my distressed questions about keeping up with my friends, staying in touch with people that had now become a social media rolodex, and adjusting to the slowed pace of life post-grad.

“I’m trying to stay motivated,” he said. “Life pace is a lot slower than it used to be—in suburbia things are sleepy and a lot of time passes in between life updates. You see the same people all the time,” he said. “I’m now almost 5 years out of college though, so that's kinda scary. So now I'm actually trying to get outside and meet more people before real adult life sets in.

“I think if there were two extremes it'd be on one side the routine and predictable stable life, and on the other side the ultra spontaneous life,” he added. “My take on it now is that the 20s are a good time to build up good habits, but also gives you enough room to try things out and mess up a few times. Sometimes I find myself too much on one side or the other. Now I'm finding that in between space where I can establish some routine but leave some wiggle room to try out things… For married people with kids you throw the rest of that free time out the window though, so beware.”

I don’t know if I’d give the same advice as he did—but I’ve also deliberately chosen a different path from others several times. I left accounting, I broke up with my college boyfriend, I moved out of the suburbs, I quit my job with nothing lined up. I also let go of some friends and refused to let other friendships atrophy. I feel proud that a lot of those efforts have paid off in some way, years later.

And I think that freedom is the heart of it. As I grow older, I both gain more resources to do what I want, but I also feel my energy and time becoming more limited. Part of me is unhappy with this never-ending optimization problem raising the stakes each year, but another part of me—the me I discovered during my sabbatical and am still growing into at 29—remembers that our lives are what we make of them and is excited for the changes that come as I learn and grow.

Not a Morning Person

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