On Aging (Early 30s edition)

I found a gray hair a few months ago. It was a shock to me, though it shouldn’t have been. My brother’s gray streak came in around the same age. My gray hair hasn’t propagated yet, but I’ve been through some hair changes regardless. When I was about 3 or so, my hair was so light that it passed for blond. It darkened as I aged a little, to a medium brown. I felt weird because my brother and my mother’s hair were so dark it passed as black. I think the medium brown possibly came from my father, but I have so few memories of him without gray hair that I can’t be certain. Now, my hair is so dark it passes for black. It irks me, but I can see my mother in the mirror. I also see my father, I have his nose. I supposedly have my paternal grandmother’s shoulders, but I barely remember her, so I have to take other family members’ words for it.

When I was in my 20s, I was deathly afraid of turning 25, let alone 30. I can pass for younger than I am, to the point that when I was completing my degree, there was a lot of shock even among older students to find out my age. So naturally, I simply let people believe what they wanted to about my age.

There's a Used Bookstore in town that runs an annual “Owner's 29th Birthday“ sale. The shop's been running it as long as I can remember. It's obviously a joke (though 29% off a book is no joke), but to some extent, as I approached 30, I could relate.

When I turned 30 last year, on social media, I decided to treat my birthday like a Final Fantasy sequel. I was not ”30“ I was “29-2”. I even wrote it in roman numerals to really get the effect.

But you know, on a personal level, ignoring the pandemic, ignoring the fact many fascists are trying to make my existence illegal and probably kill me, that sort of thing, being 30 has been much less awful than being 20.

At 20 I was even more depressed (though I hadn't started ECTs yet), I wasn't out to even myself, and I had just gotten diagnosed with Asperger's (now Autism Spectrum), and then in what was supposedly a support group (it was not a support group) shown videos of Autism Speaks comparing my brain to cancer or a car crash. Let me tell you, that does not make you feel good. Especially if after they show you this, they ask if you would take a cure.

At the time, I would. Most of my life had been misery for being different.

Now? Certainly not. My youth sucked, but Autism is a gift. Infodumping to people is a love language. On that note: this month outright ask your autistic friends to infodump to you about something, April is a hard month for Autistic people and we could use the support.

Basically there's something I was told by my therapist after my first partial hospitalization: “you have already experienced a lowest low, or rock bottom, and every time your mood dips, you will be afraid you are relapsing into the worst of it, but you aren't necessarily. You have tools now.“

That wasn't fully true at the time, because the medication-resistant depression got worse, and you know the rest.

But it's true now.

At 20 I couldn't imagine my life getting better, and I thought because I'd had to deny myself the joys of your 20s, that it was just downhill from there. I basically stopped writing around 19-ish for about a decade. I do regret that, but I know I can't change the past.

One: I'm too introverted to want to go out drinking all night anyway.

Two: Yeah, I can't pull All-nighters anymore, but All-nighters were never that great, you know? I enjoy having a bedtime, even if I wish my spoons lasted longer so I could watch more movies with people online.

Three: Even when I was in my 20s, I was never going to get on a ”30 under 30“ list. Being disabled and taking nearly a decade to get your undergraduate, while understandable, is not sexy to those lists. Plus I don't want to be an inspiration for simply being disabled and not being ashamed of it.

I'm told coming into your own in your 30s isn't as unusual as we're led to believe. Especially if you're Queer.

In some ways, my adulthood is like having the childhood I should have had. Like having leftover pie for breakfast because I can, who's gonna stop me? I need to eat something to take my medications anyway. The biggest change (aside from writing again) is that I now get excited about appliances. I was thrilled when we got our dishwasher. Later in the week I'm going to try our new vacuum (my dog destroyed the cord of the last one) and I'm practically looking forward to it.

Also, on the autism note from before? I cannot mask to save my life anymore. That could be a bad thing, maybe I'll regret it down the line, but I don't want to hide who I am, and I want to thrive as an autistic person.

On my birthday, I will update my age to say in plain text “31”, and I won't be ashamed anymore.

I heard from someone older than me that their 40s were even better than their 30s, so there's that to look forward to.