36
A few days ago I wrapped up my first quarter of my 36th year of life. If I remove the variable that is the pandemic, 36 has been pretty good to me so far and I really can’t complain. Earlier this month I was thinking about how it feels to be this age. It’s a pretty boring, uneventful one; not meaningfully different than 34 or 35 (and I suspect 37 and 38 too.) For all intents and purposes 36 seems like an unimportant stop between much more interesting milestones. And of course it’s an age that gives off an increasing glow from the looming big 4-0 in the distance headed my way. But otherwise a pretty “meh” time.
Despite this, in the back of my mind I have had this persistent, weird association between 36 and officially being “over the hill” that keeps coming to me.
Where did this come from? I know that lots of “young professional” groups consider 35 their cut off….but honestly who cares? And I know that lots of demographic surveys use 35 as the ending point for the “young adult” bracket but I feel equally “no fucks given” about that too.
I don’t worry about aging too much these days. I did a LOT of grappling with my own personal anxieties about it and starting to appreciate the experience in my early 30s. So what’s with this throwback sensation? Feels like I should be over this shit, ya know? Or at least over it for this particular phase of growing older. But there is a reason. (There’s always a reason for the most persistent of my anxious thoughts and yes, as always, all roads lead back to………………………………………………….. childhood of course!)
When I was deeply contemplating this topic earlier this month and exploring my WTFery about it, a memory came back to me and the root of this feeling revealed itself. Ya see…in my home, it was a CONSTANT running “joke” at each of my mom’s birthdays that my dad was going “trade her in for 2 newer models, half her age.” This was a “joke” that my mom actually introduced into the family zeitgeist at her 36th (which is worth noting because so many other family jokes were at her expense, not her initiating.) 36 was when this started because of the extra creepiness than hung over this “joke” because 2 X 18 = 36 ya see! And 18 is when a teen girl is “legal!” So now this “joke” can be said! How! Hilarious!
This highbrow laughfest remained after her 36th for as long as I could recall. (And for all I know, she might still be making this “joke” to him, I’m just not there to hear it, thank god.) Stuff like “If I don’t keep fit, your dad is going to trade me in for two 18 year olds” was how it played out. Or later “If I start slacking on the housework, your dad’s gonna upgrade to two 20 year olds” and so on and so on….you get the point.
El OH el!!!!
This is the point that we could roll our eyes and move on with our lives. And for the most part………..I did. It’s “just” a “silly” “joke” after all. But because it created a little cloud that hung over me turning 36, I would like to just dwell for a moment in the dynamics of what was happening here.
When this was happening…I was nearing 14 and my brother was 11. My dad was 44. I was a teen girl, whose entire world concept was being constructed. Being in the throes of adolescence (which means I was constantly assessing society and trying to figure out my place in it) I was a sponge for observing dynamics between men and women. This is a daunting task for all people and it’s especially precarious when the closest “romantic” relationship you have access to view is controlling and abusive to its core….but this isn’t even about that rotten core….this is about how the toxicity of that situation seeped into even the most “innocent” and small artifacts of my family.
So I was routinely having it normalized to me that my mom, who was already 8 years younger than my dad, was becoming “over the hill” at age 36, and the HILARIOUS conclusion was obviously that he needed two teen girls in exchange for her. (Like she’s a piece of property! SO FUNNY!)
I know I don’t have to beat a dead horse here because anyone with half a heart can get that this is fucking disgusting and while touted as family JOKES HAHAHAHAH it still sent more dangerous implicit message to me and my brother than any of us can probably fully comprehend. (And a reminder, this was no isolated incident, we were mired in a family culture that normalized abuse, misogyny, and coercion at every turn.)
To my credit, I’ve never kept quiet about anything that bothers me. I was labeled a “complainer” and a “bitch” since day one…well I was probably actually about 11 when I was first called a bitch by my dad, but definitely a complainer since day one. Although my voice often got me in trouble and it could be perilous to use it, the truth is that I learned early on that there was power in my intelligence and views and I figured out how to push back against what felt fucked up to me, the best I could, and trying to walk the line which maintained safety as much as possible. So even if I didn’t have the awareness to say, “That’s borderline pedophilic and totally inapporpriate to joke about with your teen daughter and is normalizing an extreme amount of misogyny for both of your kids” I DID have the words to say, “Eww…that’s so gross, stop saying that!” And “that’s only 4 years older than me!”
Anyway…it’s no wonder to me that a little part of the back of my brain was like, “36 is old.” And while I could have gone without this particular memory of this family joke, if it had to happen to me at all, I’m glad to recall it. Because it gave me the chance to realize something that is even more (personally) important for me about this age.
36 marks as many years of my life living on my own as I had living in that home. The 18 years that I was “under that roof” and therefore beholden to “those rules” were daunting as fuck and as I write all the time, I’m still unraveling the damage that was done. (A process I plan that will continue for the rest of my earthly life.)
But I’ve now had 18 years of that unraveling. 18 glorious years of ever so slowly but surely living for MY values and MY worldview. 18 years of cultivating the person I WANT to actually be. 18 years of asking myself, “What makes YOU happy?” “What do YOU want to do in this world?” “Who are YOU when you strip away the expectations?” “How can you care for YOURSELF more?” “How can you create relationships that are LOVING and free from coercion?” “WHO is the kind of person you want to be around?” “WHO really cares about your well being?” “How can you end the cycles of criticism and hurt and abuse and harm and self-hatred?”
I know that my mom never meant for this “little” thing to stick with me like this or for this long or for it to hurt me. I know that she actually has never had anything but love and the best intentions for me, but she failed in many ways and one of the biggest ways she failed me was through her assessment of her own worth that was projected outward in “jokes” like this. Being 36 now, I understand that my mom’s construction of the two 18 year olds that were inside her 36 years was really, really sad…they were “joke” sacrificial lambs for a very sexist, disturbed man, and she didn’t even remotely understand this.
My construction of the two 18 year olds inside my 36 years are two women who together make me for me…the first 18 year old is a scrappy, resourceful, hilarious, creative one, with a spine of steel that was forged in some pretty harsh conditions, and a squishy heart buried deep inside. She is rough around the edges, and a bit of a bull in a China shop, but she is a survivor. The second 18 year old is a healer who built a life on the foundation of the first that is both softer and smarter. She kept the spine of steel and used it as scaffolding, but she figured out how to take down the ramparts and open the windows and doors to let the sunshine in and allow the squishy heart some space to breathe and strengthen, beating fully for itself.
Those two young women together planted a garden that is flourishing for themselves and anyone else who wants to come enjoy the simple peace and stillness. There are still so many dusty corridors and cobwebs and rough edges and half walls, but these two me-s know that they can tackle them together…especially when future older, better versions of me come to join the party and guide them to new places currently yet undiscovered and opportunities to wisen and flourish more.
With 25% of my 36th year under my belt, I can say, I think it’s the best age I’ve ever been (shitty world aside.) It’s certainly not old and my value is certainly not derived from who or what I am to a man. (Even if I DO have one I’m particularly fond of and grateful to share life with.)
I’ve been thinking about writing a post or a series of posts about some stuff that I’ve been grateful for during this shitshow of a year, so let me end this blog post with one such themed gratitudes…I’m really grateful to be ME. I’m grateful for my journey and my resilience and I don’t care that it may be arrogant as fuck to be this grateful for yourself…when you’ve come as far as I have to get to a place of being able to practice true self-love, you can’t deny your gratitude for it.