As I am approaching 30, I often ponder over how I both intentionally and unintentionally strive to preserve, cultivate, and seek youth, or “youth” as such, an imagined ideal of it. I strive for youthfulness (though part of what defines youthfulness is its un-self-consciousness), to maintain substantial physical and mental energy in and for life. I am not talking about botox or diets, but rather inner-youthfulness: I envision having not just a wellness of being, but a sense of vitality, radiance, and passion in my life. I crave that sense of fullness, of seeing life as beautiful, exciting, and ripe with possibility and the future, with no immediate urgency or even desire to settle down or
figure things out, but to just be happy in the moment, in the present. But do I feel that now? That happiness and sense of
joie de vivre? I am not exactly sure that I can give a resounding
yes.Especially as I am about to end my decade-long experience of being in my 20’s, I am conscious of how my age and cultural experiences have defined how I perceive myself and my life. Living in NYC has helped me draw out that sense of being forever young, forever charmed by the sense of limitless possibilities, distractions, and directions. Perhaps I have let NYC preserve me as a sort of adult child, having refused thus far to focus long-term on one full-time career or romantic partner. Funny, it seems as suddenly, in the flash of seven years of living in New York, I now see my 20’s and NYC as cohorts, each part angel and part devil, fostering and enabling this love-hate addiction to so-called youthfulness.
As I approach 30, I hear increasingly that things start getting calmer and one starts to feel more grounded and less pressured to be forever socializing, exploring, and partying and rather begins to forge roots and stability. These latter ideas, mind you, I have dreaded and derided for most of my life; I have equated being grounded with feeling suffocated. And yet, I am finding now that the freedom, the lack of anchor, has actually been stifling other parts of myself, that all my indulgences may be causing other parts of myself to atrophy. So here I am, determined to happily kiss my 20's goodbye, determined to find more stability, to apply myself more fully and to seek some grounding. NYC, I hear you offer a lot of opportunities in those departments as well.
Funny, the
New York Times just had an essay, "
What Is It About 20-Somethings?" that discusses this very phenomenon, the new prolonged youth that endures through the 20's, and even the proposition that the 20's is a separate growth stage, one of "emerging adulthood." And so, I am hoping to emerge as a more mature adult, one who knows how to temper my youthfulness with a more well-developed, balanced perspective.
