This is 35
Hello there! My name is Carolyn and today is my 35th Birthday. Let’s pause to acknowledge this feat! 35! I feel so thankful that I am able to reach this age, and I am doing pretty well. I have a job and a great family and amazing friends. I have my own apartment, and I can take care of myself. It is a good life. I am glad to be 35.
I have never been someone who hates getting older. I have always been proud of my age, I was excited when I turned 30. I don’t really understand why people get upset by their age. I mean it is just a number. I might be 35 but I don’t feel old.
I wonder if it has to do with milestones, there is are certain expectations that by a certain age you will have a certain type of job, be married and have kids. If you haven’t hit those milestones does it make you feel bad, like you have failed, and wish that you could stop aging? If you stopped aging then would you be able figure everything out and feel accomplished. It was a few years ago that I stopped letting those expectations bother me. I am still single and I never really wanted kids to begin with. I have a good job but I think that some people might look down on it and wonder why I haven’t tried to do something better or more. Honestly, I struggled for so long to get a job in the first place that most days I just feel so lucky to have one. Other times I wonder if it is because I don’t really know what else to do.
At the beginning of the month I celebrated another landmark occasion, 10 years of living in my current apartment. This might not seem like much but to me it is huge. When I first signed the lease for this apartment I had no idea what the future held. I had been living in an apartment with a friend, I was having a difficult time finding a job and we decided to move out of the apartment we shared together. After we had put in notice I got a temp job and also began looking for somewhere new to live. I discovered this tiny apartment in the same complex that my brother and sister-in-law were living in at the time. The rent was more then I had budgeted but there was something about this tiny place that made me want to live there. It might have been that it is such a fantastic area of the city or it could have been that I was so close to my brother. I’m not sure what it was but I knew that was the place for me.
Over the next 2 years I really struggled. I lost my temp job and went through a bit of a depression. I felt pretty lost, trying out a few other jobs but nothing really felt right. Finally, right when I was at my breaking point thinking that I was going to have to move back to my hometown and live with parents, a break at last. I got an interview for a job that I was really interested in and I have now been with that company for 8 years. Let me tell you when I first moved into my apartment I did not think that that I would make it 1 year let along 10. This feels like an accomplishment to me because it means that I did it, I figured it out when I was struggling, I made it work and I am doing well now.
I might not have reached the “traditional” milestones but I feel like I have truly grown during the past 10 years. I had ups and downs, I have learned how to deal with loss and how to get by on my own. I have cultivated some wonderful friendships and I have become closer with my family. However, at 35, I don’t feel like I am done yet. I feel like I still have a lot to learn about myself and what I want out of life. And you know what? I don’t think that I am too old to do just that.