{"id":256736,"date":"2023-11-09T07:12:00","date_gmt":"2023-11-09T12:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/electricliterature.com\/?p=256736"},"modified":"2024-01-24T09:44:42","modified_gmt":"2024-01-24T14:44:42","slug":"according-to-tiktok-ill-be-over-the-hill-when-i-turn-thirty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/electricliterature.com\/according-to-tiktok-ill-be-over-the-hill-when-i-turn-thirty\/","title":{"rendered":"When Turning Thirty Becomes an Existential Crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

There\u2019s a TikTok trend that haunts me lately, finding its way to my phone every chance it gets. In the short videos, posted by hundreds of fresh-faced, beautiful young girls, I watch as they struggle to answer the question \u201cHow old are you?\u201d In between the question and their answer, they gag and try to squeeze out the words \u201ctwenty-five\u201d from their tiny yet perfectly plump lips, never able to fully say the dreaded words. They do this over and over again, signaling the fact that they are disgusted with themselves, absolutely mortified by their barely aged bodies and faces. They\u2019re hiding behind the shame of what they\u2019ve let themselves do\u2014get older. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every time I see this clip, I swipe past it before I have time to face it. I\u2019m 29 today, I\u2019ll be 30 on January 22nd, now only 3 short months away, and I have beetles crawling through my veins at just the thought of it. I know this isn\u2019t a revolutionary thought, this dread I feel as I inch closer to thirty, to three-zero, further away from my days binge-drinking out of a vodka handle and making out with men who certainly will not be my husband (but that\u2019s okay! It doesn\u2019t matter! because I\u2019m too young to care!<\/em>). But this feeling is universal. It\u2019s shoved down my throat every day with glazed-donut skincare and girlies in low-rise jeans who are rolling their eyes at how \u201ccheugy\u201d I am. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I can\u2019t figure out how to make what everyone tells me is the end of my youth easy to swallow.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Today, I am the nearly 30-something woman who flies home from Los Angeles every few months and tries to talk to her college sister about blow jobs. The woman who is seriously and not so seriously talking to her boyfriend about a wedding ring and children and also still asking herself if that\u2019s what she wants, really, <\/em>while googling how soon she\u2019d have to freeze her eggs for it to all still be worth it. Simultaneously, I am as grounded as I\u2019ve ever been. As sure of how I want to spend my days, as certain about what fills me and as I am about what doesn\u2019t. Still, I get a sense from the internet, and my darkest thoughts by proxy, that I should be willing to trade in my stability and peace of mind for my youth, that both things can\u2019t exist at once. That once I\u2019m settled I\u2019ll be boring, and monotone, and wearing skinny jeans for the rest of my life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I share these thoughts, conflicting and confusing, with my best friend, Ellie, who floats around the world with a child-like wonder I envy, she tells me that I need to lighten up. \u201cYou\u2019ve been saying you\u2019re thirty since we were like, twenty-five,\u201d she jokes. And she\u2019s right, I do need to lighten up. But I can\u2019t figure out how to make what everyone tells me is the end of my youth easy to swallow. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe that\u2019s because, from an early age, I\u2019ve been taught that staying small was the secret sauce to life. That the only thing that would give me what I wanted was to be forever young. I was 13 and performing in The Lion King on Broadway when the director told me my contract wouldn\u2019t be renewed because, in just 6 months, I had grown 2 inches, the exact right amount to make me \u201ctoo tall\u201d to be young Nala anymore. Even the New York Times reported my failure, quoting that \u201cFor Natalie there will be no renewal of the six-month contract(…) the girl was clearly “taller than Simba, and that’s not a good thing, probably.” I was mortified, seeing the shame of my growth in print like that. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m the milk in the fridge that you\u2019re sniffing before you swallow down.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

From that day on, I remember spreading my legs wide around the producers to make myself look shorter, bending my knees ever so slightly when they came around with hopes they wouldn\u2019t notice how I\u2019d sprouted up. But unfortunately for me, I couldn\u2019t hide from the way I was growing, from my maturation, from the budding tits that stuck out just enough to make the audience wonder if I was innocent enough to be up there, dancing around on a stage like that. And once that was said and done, and I bowed my last curtain call, I carried it with me, this idea that for a woman in the world, it\u2019s better to be smaller, shorter, younger. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

From then on, every birthday to me has felt like a death sentence. I over-exaggerate my love for it, forcing days-long celebrations from my loved ones. But somewhere deep down, the anticipation of it all kills me, makes me lean over with grief and guilt that I haven\u2019t achieved enough to earn my way to another year on this planet. What a sight it must be for the fly on the wall, watching me on the eve of my birthday at 23, 24, and 25, pacing the room and staying up all night asking myself who will I be once the clock strikes 12, asking myself what my worth will be if not the most impressive young person in the room. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In her novel, Writers and Lovers<\/a><\/em>, Lily King has this line about not being the youngest kind of adult anymore. \u201cThese BU students, they\u2019re too young to have ridden a banana bike. It\u2019s strange, to not be the youngest kind of adult anymore.\u201d And I think that\u2019s who I am now \u2013 the girl, or woman, in the room who remembers the banana bike. Not so young that you\u2019re staring at me wide-eyed and spitting game about all the possibilities of my life. Not so old that you\u2019ve totally disregarded me. In some sort of purgatory hell nearing an expiration date. I\u2019m the milk in the fridge that you\u2019re sniffing before you swallow down. Or at least I\u2019m telling myself I am. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s in the middle when we are cruel to ourselves and to each other.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

So here I am at almost thirty, trying to kick my body back into feeling 22. I\u2019m waking up an extra hour early to get to Pilates because I can finally start to feel my body changing, the way it bloats in the morning if I eat after 9 p.m. The way I can\u2019t stay up past 11 without feeling it behind my eyes in the morning. The way I can\u2019t drink more than two glasses of champagne without feeling at least a little bit queasy the next day, and the way I certainly can\u2019t forget to stretch without my lower back feeling like it\u2019s on fire. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beyond the physical though, I\u2019m hyper-aware that the choices I make today will impact what\u2019s possible for my tomorrow. Or as my little brother would say, I\u2019m like \u201creally an adult now. I have to get my taxes right and everything. I just can\u2019t hide from it anymore.\u201d I read that in America, the average age to buy a house is Thirty-Three. Every day I\u2019m checking my bank account to see if that math will add up for me. So far, I don\u2019t think it will. I\u2019m stuck in this cycle of iced coffee or home ownership, and my younger self keeps slurping down that cold caffeine while the 30-year-old in me beats her to a pulp at night. <\/p>\n\n\n