thoughts on 30
Apr. 22nd, 2012 08:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aryanhwyIt's not often that you hit another decade.
I remember shortly before I turned 10, being so excited at hitting the double digits. It was like the world was opening before me.
I got my acceptance to grad school a few days before my 20th birthday (in an email with subject line "Happy birthday"!). A few days later, Joel invited me over, for the first time, for a celebratory dinner.
When I look back on what I've accomplished in the last decade, I'm simply astonished, even though for such much of the time I felt like I was treading water, just surviving, waiting for my life to begin.
Since my 20th birthday I have:
- Obtained four degrees (B.A. English, B.A. philosophy, M.A. philosophy, PhD logic).
- Started dating, married, and stayed married to my husband.
- Moved overseas.
- Traveled all over the world (Iceland, Ireland, England, Wales, Scotland, Portugal (incl. the Azores), Spain, France, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Czech Republic, Poland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Russia, Australia, Indonesia, and, of course, the US).
- Been Pelican Queen of Arms.
- Gotten a Real (albeit temporary) Job (TM).
- Had a baby.
- Become Princess.
So yeah. I'd say a lot of my life was lived even if at sometimes I felt like I was stuck in a holding pattern!
As my birthday approached I started thinking a lot about being an adult. I always thought that I'd have my first kid by/around 25, and have two by 30, but we see how that has gone. At least I have Gwen, and I'm very grateful for her.
In most respects, I don't really feel like an adult yet. Part of this stems from my relationship with my parents, where I feel like I haven't outgrown being their child in the same way I feel they did with their parents when I was a kid (maybe this will happen more as Gwen grows?). But not only was it important to me to have my parents meet the new friends that we've made over here, it didn't seem strange or unnatural at all to want them to also meet the parents of those friends (a la our trip to Groningen last weekend in part so my parents could meet Martijn's mom and stepdad). I don't recall my parents introducing their (adult) friends to their parents, much less their friends' parents!
I also don't really feel much like an adult because the transition has been so seemless; I don't really feel like what I'm doing is that much different from what I had been doing 10 years ago, and in fact, it isn't that much different, only in scale, location, and monetary recompense. There wasn't any decisive moment that set me apart from who I had been. In fact, the one time that I felt scarily like an adult, in a way that I almost didn't recognize myself, was Valentine's Day this year when a colleague of mine came over to babysit Gwen so we could go out to eat, and I was telling her all the things you tell babysitters -- the emergency phone number, how to reach us, what time we'd be back, feel free to eat whatever you find in the fridge -- all these things that I've been on the receiving end of so many times, but had never been on the giving end.
Lots of surprises happened in the last decade -- the biggest unplanned of which was the move to Europe (unplanned at my 20th birthday, that is, not unplanned when it happened). I wonder what the next decade will hold. I'm glad Gwen will hit 10 before I hit 40. I remember when my dad turned 40. I didn't know that my dad could be so old!
I remember shortly before I turned 10, being so excited at hitting the double digits. It was like the world was opening before me.
I got my acceptance to grad school a few days before my 20th birthday (in an email with subject line "Happy birthday"!). A few days later, Joel invited me over, for the first time, for a celebratory dinner.
When I look back on what I've accomplished in the last decade, I'm simply astonished, even though for such much of the time I felt like I was treading water, just surviving, waiting for my life to begin.
Since my 20th birthday I have:
- Obtained four degrees (B.A. English, B.A. philosophy, M.A. philosophy, PhD logic).
- Started dating, married, and stayed married to my husband.
- Moved overseas.
- Traveled all over the world (Iceland, Ireland, England, Wales, Scotland, Portugal (incl. the Azores), Spain, France, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Czech Republic, Poland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Russia, Australia, Indonesia, and, of course, the US).
- Been Pelican Queen of Arms.
- Gotten a Real (albeit temporary) Job (TM).
- Had a baby.
- Become Princess.
So yeah. I'd say a lot of my life was lived even if at sometimes I felt like I was stuck in a holding pattern!
As my birthday approached I started thinking a lot about being an adult. I always thought that I'd have my first kid by/around 25, and have two by 30, but we see how that has gone. At least I have Gwen, and I'm very grateful for her.
In most respects, I don't really feel like an adult yet. Part of this stems from my relationship with my parents, where I feel like I haven't outgrown being their child in the same way I feel they did with their parents when I was a kid (maybe this will happen more as Gwen grows?). But not only was it important to me to have my parents meet the new friends that we've made over here, it didn't seem strange or unnatural at all to want them to also meet the parents of those friends (a la our trip to Groningen last weekend in part so my parents could meet Martijn's mom and stepdad). I don't recall my parents introducing their (adult) friends to their parents, much less their friends' parents!
I also don't really feel much like an adult because the transition has been so seemless; I don't really feel like what I'm doing is that much different from what I had been doing 10 years ago, and in fact, it isn't that much different, only in scale, location, and monetary recompense. There wasn't any decisive moment that set me apart from who I had been. In fact, the one time that I felt scarily like an adult, in a way that I almost didn't recognize myself, was Valentine's Day this year when a colleague of mine came over to babysit Gwen so we could go out to eat, and I was telling her all the things you tell babysitters -- the emergency phone number, how to reach us, what time we'd be back, feel free to eat whatever you find in the fridge -- all these things that I've been on the receiving end of so many times, but had never been on the giving end.
Lots of surprises happened in the last decade -- the biggest unplanned of which was the move to Europe (unplanned at my 20th birthday, that is, not unplanned when it happened). I wonder what the next decade will hold. I'm glad Gwen will hit 10 before I hit 40. I remember when my dad turned 40. I didn't know that my dad could be so old!
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no subject
Date: 2012-04-22 11:14 am (UTC)I can't help mentioning that my dad was 45 when I was born. He was never old to me, always just my dad. But strangers sometimes thought that he was my grandfather. He loved the time a store clerk mistook him for my grandfather and I resolutely informed the man, "No, he's my daddy." :)
no subject
Date: 2012-04-22 11:22 am (UTC)Let's see... (does math)... I was 14 when my dad turned 40 (and 16 when my mom did); I always appreciated, growing up, having young parents, and it was something I wanted to do/be as well. But Joel's dad was 40 when he was born, and he grew up being used to having older parents, as well as having a lot of friends with older parents (e.g., due to having a lot of older siblings). One thing that we both noticed, and commented on when we were in Oxford and hence saw a lot of other women walking around pushing what was apparently a first baby in a stroller, was that even though by my reckoning I'm not a "young" mom, by comparison to other parents out there today, I actually rather am. I think I was one of the youngest in my prenatal course (of the 10 other women, there's 2 that I'd peg my age or maybe a year or two younger), and I'm pretty sure that I'm younger than the other moms I've seen at Gwen's daycare. And while I'm a terrible judge of the age of other women, most that I see out there with kids I don't feel like I'm as old as they are -- though this could be more a reflection of me than of how old they are! I also have no idea how old others would peg me; the grey hairs tend to throw people for a loop.
no subject
Date: 2012-04-22 11:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-22 12:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-22 04:40 pm (UTC)Don't worry about the parents treating you like a child. Parents sometimes get stuck in that mode. My parents (particularly my mother) still tries to treat my siblings and me like we're teens - right down to telling us how to do a task step-by-step. Hopefully she'll outgrow this phase soon.
S
no subject
Date: 2012-04-22 04:46 pm (UTC)Hmmm, it's not really that. It's more of me still treating them like I'm their child. Which sounds stupid, because of *course* I'm their child, but I'm not really sure how better to say it.
no subject
Date: 2012-04-23 01:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-23 06:55 am (UTC)The renting (and hopefully later buying!) an entire house thing is definitely a marker; it's one of the things that helped me relegate myself to the move to Tilburg, the fact that we're living in a Real House.
no subject
Date: 2012-04-25 09:25 am (UTC)Seriously? You have to say cuz I want to be sure I am talking to a real princess.... ;-)
Happy Happy Birthday!
-St. E
Thanks for your comment on Figz's weigh-in...I have really wanted to see her weight go up...she was just 2.5 kgs at birth...
no subject
Date: 2012-04-25 12:51 pm (UTC)I've been involved with the Society for Creative Anachronism, a world-wide medieval re-creation society, since I was in high school. The Society has 19 kingdoms, and each of the kingdoms every six months chooses a new king and queen through a combat tournament. On a whim a friend of mine decided he was interested in fighting in the most recent tournament, and a mutual friend of ours suggested that I would be a suitable consort, and lo and behold, Paul won the tournament, and so I'm now the Princess of Drachenwald (the SCA kingdom that covers Europe, the Middle East, and South Africa). In June, there will be a coronation where we were crowned king and queen, and in October another tournament to determine our heirs, who will be crowned king and queen in January. So I get 3 months to be princess and 6 to be queen, and it's basically everything a fairy-tale loving, Tolkien-reading, knights-in-shining-armor-geeking little girl could've dreamt. It's been 3+ weeks since Paul won the tournament, and I still grin about it every time I think of it.