I turned 35 this morning at 4:32am.
Last week, I was walking through the East Village to go to my friend’s apartment on Avenue B. I had gotten off the subway at a stop I don’t usually get off at (Delancey) and I unexpectedly walked past a hookah bar that seemed familiar. I stopped and stared across the street like I was staring into another lifetime. It was the place I had my 25th birthday dinner, in 2007. It was weird. 10 years have gone by since that day.
I had moved to New York city that year, to start a new life, about to be 25. And this year I’m leaving, to start a new life, right as I turn 35.
Life is funny. And I’m so, so, so nostalgic.
All I want to do is wander every street of New York City until I walk past all of my old apartments (7 different apartments, to be exact), and remember how it felt to walk into each one of those doors, and live the life that existed inside there. With those people. With that outlook.
I think about that line in that Something Coporate song.
“I met a girl who kept tattoos for homes that she had loved. If I were her, I’d paint my body til all my skin was gone.”
I have to say, something feels a lot different to me about turning 35 than any other birthday has before. I can’t completely pinpoint what it is, but I can try.
I’ve started to come to the realization recently that I’m not actually going to be in my 20s forever. My 20s felt like such a long time, and the first 4 years of my 30s still felt like I was still in my 20s.
Listen, I’m not saying 35 is old, I’m just saying that it’s the first time I’ve actually realized I’m one day going to be 40…and one day going to be 50. And 60, and 70, and 80, and 90. I feel disconnected from getting older and hyper aware of it at the same time. Does everyone feel like this?
Up until recently, I really thought I’d be 28 forever.
I’ve also been much more aware recently that I’m not actually immortal (well, maybe I am, who knows). But when you’re younger, it always feels like you’re going to live forever, doesn’t it? And then when you start to experience getting a little older, whatever that means to you, however that feels to you…there’s something inside you that says, a little startled… “wait…oh…this is real.”
It’s not until that bridge between youth and adulthood is truly crossed – and that is a different point for everyone – that it becomes achingly obvious that everyone actually does get older. Everyone is getting older at this very second.
Everyone.
Sometimes I forget that, too. I think I’m the only one thinking about growing older. But we’re all in the same boat here, year after year, floating through space.
Trying to make sense of it all. Trying to make meaning of it all. Trying to live it to its “fullest.”
Being more aware of our mortality can be a good thing. I’ve got this real sense — that not only will I not be young forever, but I won’t be on Earth forever. And that makes me want to appreciate the little moments that much more. And not waste time. And not let anyone I love go unappreciated.
I don’t know why 35 feels different. It just does. I don’t know man, I’m just feeling very thinky right now.
I feel older, and at the same time, it feels like my life is just beginning.
Like there is so much more to discover, so much more to experience, so many people to love that I haven’t loved yet.
There are people who will one day be the most important humans in my life, that I would give ANYTHING for, that aren’t even f*cking BORN yet.
HOW INSANE IS THAT?
When I think back to all I’ve uncovered and discovered and all the people I’ve loved in the past 34 years, my heart swells almost to the painful point of bursting.
How can there be more? How can there possibly be more that will fit into my heart?
There will be, though. That’s the crazy, crazy, CRAZY part of it all.
There will be.
To another year of life. :)
Love,
Jenny
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