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On my mind..
Life isn't about finding yourself
Its about creating yourself
~
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
Monday, January 26, 2009
20s vs 30s
4:20 PM

A simple 2 am college buddies catching up Melbourne to London conversation after 6 cigarettes (bought on impulse to accompany the 3 day weekend, 4 cuppa noodles and a 7 movie Hitchcock box set sitting on my desk) struck terror in my barely adult heart....all the people, literature, cinema I related to were in their early 30s! Explains why at 22 I was enjoying the feeling of planning out a home purchase, found no true joy in my colleagues' nights out, already longed for a familial environment that I would inhabit with a significant other and had got sloshed only twice in my entire life. Suddenly my room seemed alien to my personality - sitting in an old gray pair of pyjamas and plain blue shirt, Hitchcock DVDs, a frayed copy of Far Pavilions, Robert Frost collected works, a sober Nivea plum lip gloss and  YSL eyeliner the only sign of make up, bitch wood queen bed, a classy but very boring black cellphone, sensible UV400 non-Paris Hilton white rimmed sunglasses, shades of gray, beige and brown in my work wardrobe, practical camisoles, no posters, no lava lamps, no hoopy earrings - was I really 22? I had a 3 day weekend and I chose to spend it baking a coffee cake and watching movies that were made more than half a century ago!

In sex and the city style, I ask of you, with today's metropolitan lifestyle allowing people to achieve more at younger ages, is 20 the new 30? Has the information overload matured them enough by that age to dress classic, know exactly what kind of man they want, have the turn around of 'mom-never-gets-me' to 'she's-my-best-friend' and work on "having a good relationship with themselves"?

So what then when you hit your 30's? I'm not there but the beginnings of some trends in my life. Of what I've seen these people actually have all they strove for in the 20s - at least the smart ones do. The yearning they had for a life partner got lost because of its constant unfulfillment. Instead they are soulmates with their best friends, have "office spouses",  are faithfully loyal to their clients and treat every new project as a new born baby to be nourished and then watched as it takes flight. Big was right when he told Miranda, Samantha and Charlotte "You girls are the three great loves of Carrie's life - a man can only hope to come fourth." As life recently proved to me, a breakup with a best friend cuts far deeper than a man. This is something a woman learns early in life, that friendships outlast relationships. That family outlasts friendships. That a solid career is more uplifting to self esteem than a compliment for a good ravioli. And just like that, the boyfriend-girlfriend-daddy priority is reversed. For life. Jaded? Cynical? No, not really. Merely a girl, becoming a woman.

Another change : like everything else in our lives, we learn to take responsibility for our emotions; manage our emotions, if you will. A distant and almost cold ability to watch them, aware,  from a distance as they appear, rather than feel them. Which allows you to filter only predetermined percentage to permeate your consciousness, which gives you a tremendous sense of control. Its good in a way - isn't that what the Vedas talk of - controlling your senses and emotions is the way towards a truer life? To not need to express everything - anger, joy..to keep in the anger towards others, to be stoic in the joy. Then why do we prosecute those who have perfected this art? Having seen people be slave to their emotions, having been slave to them myself even now more often than I'd like (recently did that - remains to be seen what the consequences will be), I think its a brilliant mandate to live by.

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