Next week I turn 32—an age I claimed out loud out the first time a few days ago which caused me to involuntarily blurt out, “Holy shit I’m old.”
Because last I remember, I had set up camp in my “late-twenties”—pitched a tent and decided I was comfortable identifying myself there for the foreseeable future. Questions like “Do you have your ID on you?” and “Are you the nanny?” sporadically got tossed around during this era, and I was contented to play the part of the suspiciously “young mom” forever.
This is why trading in my “late-twenties” card for my “early-thirties” card feels so ominous and imposing on my youth. The Circle K employees have stopped carding me anymore when I go in to buy my weekly box of wine, and I’ve officially dropped the “young” from my title and am now just “mom”, which is as un-sexy and inglorious as it sounds.
Furthermore, the undeniable truth of being “32” is corroborated by all the evidence staring back at me in the mirror every morning. Like film that has taken a decade to develop, I can see my twenties exposing themselves on my face, daily. All the drinking and tanning has finally caught up to me—imprinting my reflection with permanent lines and dark spots as if to say, “You didn’t think you’d get off that easy, did you?”
And then there are my eyes, which tell a story all on their own. They clearly say, “I have a toddler and a seven-year-old and haven’t slept well or taken my makeup off consistently since…”
Transitioning two years ago from my twenties into my thirties came with its own set of challenges. Not only was it the year we all met COVID-19 and felt our anxiety collectively double-down, but it was also the year my collagen and metabolism decided to go part-time. In a frantic effort to educate myself on anti-aging, I made the rookie mistake of following a dermatologist on Instagram. I clicked on a few before and after’s, maybe read a caption or two about Botox. In short, I showed the Instagram algorithm my fear, and now I can’t scroll through my feed anymore without being reminded of my age.
Here’s lip fillers!! Serums! Injectables! Plastic Surgery!! Bitter jokes about Gen Z!! Targeted ads for Ann Taylor!! In case you forgot (not that we’d let you), you are too fucking old for social media! But don’t worry Grandma, we can distort the thirties right off your face with FILTERS!!!
Frankly, I’m a little in shock to be on the outs with youth so quickly. When did everything start snowballing downhill? Why do I suddenly need to check the water pressure on my fountain of youth—I thought this thing was spring-fed? I feel like I blinked and all my hey-days slipped right through my wrinkly old fingers. Like somehow overnight I ended up on the shelf for day-old-bread, where limiting terms like “age-appropriate”, “shapewear”, and “life insurance” are common vernacular.
What’s most unsettling is the bitter resentment I feel for being blindsided by these changes. I knew my thirties were coming. I said goodbye to my twenties in dramatic fashion, complete with the requisite all-out identity crisis. What I was unprepared for, is that at thirty-two the identity-saga is continuing. Are you telling me that I not only have to act mature, but I have to look mature too?
Maybe my unease is due to the fact I’m new to this decade. I don’t know how to be thirty, let alone thirty-two. My only reference point for thirty-year-old women are Carrie, Samantha, Miranda, and Charlotte—and since I’m not exactly running down Park Avenue hailing a cab in my Manolo’s, I’m semi-lost on exactly what the archetype for a thirty-something woman is.
According to my identity crisis, wasn’t I supposed to be well-traveled by thirty-two? Successful? Rich? Write a provocative column for B list newspaper?? How on earth am I going to hide the fact that I don’t know how to be an adult behind an age that clearly communicates I am one?
It was this booming sense of self-esteem that led me to venture a question about my age to my husband last week. I had spent four days being ill and immobilized on the couch with the flu, and even though he was sitting a safe enough distance away from me, he could plainly see I hadn’t made my usual effort to disguise my aesthetics at all. Unprompted, he commented how much he liked my bare look. “I like your face without makeup,” he said assuredly, “It reminds me of when I first met you. You never wore makeup back then.”
“Yeah, because I was twenty-fucking-two!” my mind said spitefully.
Clearly seeking pain and sensing an opportunity to project my fears of aging onto him, I asked, “Do you ever wish I was twenty-two again?”
“Never,” he answered with an almost imperceptible shudder and oddly endearing look that said, “I wouldn’t be caught within ten feet of that crazy broad…”
Because truly, even though twenty-two-year-old me was younger, smoother, and practically lived in a bikini, she was also confused, emotionally unhinged, and still learning all her lessons the hard way.
The thought has finally occurred to me, that maybe instead of grasping at injectables and laying my foundation on every morning like spackle, I should just begin to embrace my age and everything that comes with it.
Because being a woman in her thirties is not without its perks. For one, there’s not a heartbreak around every corner. For another, my face doesn’t tell the world I’m ripe to be taken advantage of. My conversations are no longer dripping with desperation and I don’t feel half-baked anymore in a fully baked world. And the ground under my feet is solid and stable, which is an adjective no one would ever use to describe me in my twenties. Sure it’s a little boring here, but I’m also not scraping for change under the couch cushions anymore, either.
So maybe aging gracefully has less to do with running constant interference between our appearance and time, and more to do with evolving our mindset. About realizing that looking younger is fine, but isn’t a second chance at being younger (think Amy Poehler in Mean Girls). And honestly, no part of my almost thirty-two-year-old self wants to be young, naive, and twenty again (although I would go back just to put sunscreen on her). For now, I am happy to take a deep breath and not feel the urge to be any age but my own.
So if our twenties are about learning, sorting, and sifting out the extraneous, hopefully, our thirties will be a wide-open lane to just “be” ourselves, despite the Instagram algorithm pigeonholing us as ancient Millennial hags. I guess the lesson here is that maturing comes with all the evidence in-tow, as well it should when the wisdom is as hard-earned as mine.
Because I don’t know about you, but I’m finally feeling okay with being thirty-two.
Until tomorrow,
Tess