What Jess Said

On Waiting To Turn 30

When I was eighteen I moved to Eugene where I only knew one person. The anxieties of being alone and on my own for the first time ever were pretty front and center in my mind. I had no idea what I was doing in Oregon really, aside from escaping my home town—attempting departure into some unknown freedom from care. There I was, biking around a new city, hoping that no one could figure out how freaked I was to be out and on my own. But, like most kids leaving their home for the first time, I was intimidated by everyone that surrounded me, these older kids, twenty and up, who just seemed to move through the world so smoothly. I wanted them to think I was as calm and cool as they were. The fear of others' judgment, I remember in those first few weeks, was pretty high.

But, then my friend Noah came to town, back from a bike touring trip with his partner. I met up with him at his new house in the quieter Friendly neighborhood. He lived in a small co-op house with an older polycule and their four kids, along with a few others. I remember meeting his older roommates, the ones with the kids, and being in total awe. For me, back then, they had it all together. And while I’m not sure how true that really was, at the age of eighteen, they seemed invincible. They were stressed and tired, but they had their purposes and didn’t seem to have the time to care about what others thought of them. They were too busy to care, or just too old to even humor the opinions of others. 

Noah and I sat outside on the patio in the back of the house one day with Jess, one of his older housemates. I can’t remember if this was my first time meeting Jess or not. We sat out there, smoking and talking as her partners helped put the kids to bed, giving Jess a small break in her day of caretaking. Somehow we got to talking about age. Maybe Jess asked how old I was, maybe Noah mentioned that I was young, sort of like his little brother. Maybe someone mentioned worrying about some tension with friends, how someone judged us. Like I said earlier, the memory is faded and worn and at this point just the outline of the words that Jess said are still stuck in my head like some mostly faded bumper sticker.

“Just wait until you’re out of your twenties,” Jess said. 

And it struck me the ease with which she said this. The comfort in her certainty that your thirties are so much better than your twenties.

“You just stop caring what people think,” she finished. 

She went on talking about how in your twenties you are so worried about how you are perceived by others and the quality of your ambitions and how they meet up with your peers. But, then, you hit your thirties and you suddenly stop caring. You’re doing what you need to do to get by, and if it seems to be working, that’s fine. No need to care what others think of your life, because they are not living it. 

Ever since that moment, at eighteen, I’ve been looking forward to turning thirty. As the years went on and the more people in or passed their thirties I met, the more what Jess said seemed to be true. In your twenties you care too much. In your thirties, you’re just enjoying what you’ve already been doing. And while I’ve been trying to act without much care as a thirty year old since that moment, it’s only as of the past couple years, really coming to fruition.

I’ve been slowly for the past five years growing tired of my own anxieties of how others perceive me. When I was 24 they really started to seem like a pointless use of my thinking. And while I’m thankful I could recognize this and slowly change, I still cared too much about how people saw me. And still I do care. But importantly I no longer let that get in the way of whatever it is I am doing or what I want to do. I’m comfortable writing in this way, in this style. I’m comfortable being who I am and accepting whatever changes, good or bad, come about in front of me. Sure I do worry in some of the same ways as that anxious little eighteen year old did. But I’m slowly growing to be more at peace with all that. And I’m thirty now. And it’s not so much turning thirty that makes me care less about the things that once worried me, but a steady and full life that has shown how unhelpful it has been in the past to care what others think. And like I said, at thirty, I still do care, but it doesn’t dictate my world as much as it used to. I’m done with my twenties way of thinking, at least for now satisfied with wherever I land.