Twenty Old Years Old

Montreal, Canada

This is it guys. In 10 days time this old lady is officially…well, older. When I use the word old I never do so to offend those sager and in a different chapter of life than I. I do so because the reality that adulthood is not only imminent, but that I’m pretty much in the midst of it starts to sink in and freak me the F out. Don’t get me wrong age is just a number, I’ll be youthful well into my 90s, and I’m not scared of loosing my looks. That’s not what bothers me about aging. The passage of time is what I find to be awfully confounding. You see I swear to you, I was 16 only yesterday, and though I know I have grown and am better and wiser, that 16 year old girl is still the one living in my mind. I have the same hopeful nature, those same little things bring me joy, and though I know I have matured, I feel more like a kid now than I did then. It took me so long to get to 16, 18, 20, but this 28th birthday arrived in an awfully sobering blink of an eye. Why is it when you’re a child all you want to do is be seen an adult, and now that I am an “adult” I feel more like a child than ever? Is that Peter Pan syndrome or is that I know there’s so much I don’t know and have yet to learn, that keeps me young?

Did I loose you there? That was a lot of psychobabble spewing out of my brain, so if you stuck around thank you. I guess what I was trying to say is, time is the greatest currency we have. The only unsustainable resource we can truly never get back. People work tirelessly their whole lives for a medium of exchange easily lost or gained, but I never understood why more reverence isn’t placed on time. In my teens I used to be able to recount and narrate to you what I did or where I was a certain week or month of a certain year. Now time seems to be running by me so fast I can’t seem to remember what I ate yesterday. Getting a year older scares me not because I’m loosing my youth, but because I’m scared I’m not placing enough importance on time. I just can’t seem to see where it goes or went.

That’s when I realized what happened. Why it passes so quickly now, when it seemed to move so slowly then. Happiness. I just got really happy. Happiness with myself, my relationships, my place in the world. Finding that kind of comfort in life kind of changes everything. I stopped looking forward to the next thing, and starting living in every adventure, and banal moment that made me smile. The reason it feels like 16 year old me has more time stamped memories of the good old days isn’t because I was having more fun then, it’s because fun was rarer then. Don’t get me wrong life gets more complicated and dense along the way, but really, that only makes the good stuff shine brighter. Our life is so full now, I can no longer create a timeline of all the memorable moments, as there’s just too many good ones floating around in my mind. That’s when you realize aging isn’t so big and bad after all. So sure, 16 year old me is still up there, with hopes and dreams she’s still running towards while time is sprinting by in the other direction, and sure, she’s still kind of freaking out that homegirl is pushing 30, but I can easily calm her down by reminding her how we got here. Time just flies when you’re having fun…

HM X Giambattista Valli dress, Olympia Le-Tan book bag, and Prada sandals