Thirty-one

every year is the same shit

“you’re a baby! enjoy it while it lasts,” i said from afar at a party when a young man shared, with a hint of shame, that he was twenty-five.
not so long ago — or at least it feels that way — i was the one being told that same thing. and now i’m the one saying it.

it still baffles me how loud the invisible pressure gets with age. it can never be turned down. each year, i feel it squeeze a little tighter around my chest. and now, it’s actually here — the dreaded thirties. i turned thirty last year, and i thought turning thirty-one would feel easier since the first digit stays the same. but it doesn’t. it’s the same strange ache. the same reckoning.

I struggle. i battle with the obvious. i fail to recognize myself sometimes. who is she? when did i become this person? why are my knees so stiff? i went out dancing last night and felt like an old hag, i loved every minute of it until i looked in the mirror and was aware of my physical self. i’m about to be thirty-one and single — again. another single birthday. another year where i didn’t quite reach the version of myself i thought i’d be by now.

Listen i do not need a man, vogue even recently said having a boyfriend now feels embarrassing, ive worked my ass off in therapy to decenter men, and i have, but craving love is a human need. i wish i could gaslight myself even harder. it’s out of my control, just like time.

time moves so fast, and yet so unbearably slow.
“that was three years ago.”
“five years ago.”
“eight years ago, i think.”
memories blur together until they barely exist. sometimes people remind me of things i’ve lived through and i just blink.
“really? he said that to me? damn.”
i have no memory of it. good, i guess.

i get dark when my birthday comes around. every year, i tell myself i’ll be ready for it, that this time i’ll feel fine. and every year, it swallows me whole. i want to stay in bed and curl up into a ball — a bigger ball, with my womanly, thirty-one-year-old body.

the irony is that i actually had a great year. still, i feel like trash when the inevitable comes. why? i was just getting used to this body, this face, this pace of life — and it’s already time to let it go again. no rest. life gets sweeter, i get wiser, but the body heals slower. and there’s so much i can’t do anymore.

it’s the pressing reality of how you can never truly have it all.
and i know i’m not alone in this. i see people shocked at their own age, still seeing themselves as a fifteen-year-old girl.
it’s such a warped perception of the self — i have no idea what i look like anymore.

i keep hearing the bad things, the ugly things, said by that quiet voice that lives somewhere in my head.
nasty.
so nasty.
i hate it. yet i keep feeding it.
yes, i do look older, don’t i?
yes, i do look softer, rounder, different.
where are my abs?
is my skin sagging?
how can i fix it? how can i fix anything?
how can i hide?

but also — how can i keep hiding, when i know life doesn’t pause for me to figure it out?

maybe that’s just it. maybe there’s nothing to fix. maybe we only grow into ourselves by staying — by showing up again and again, even when it hurts to look. the clock keeps ticking; my mom gets older, my dad slower, wobblier. my hair grows greyer, my friends more grounded. the world keeps spinning for all of us, and the carpet is slowly, inevitably, being pulled from under our feet.

so eat the world whole. find the courage to love the stage you’re in, because soon enough you’ll be missing it.