I think it’s fair to say I have never been a fan of ageing. I want to say it stemmed from the age of 23 when I got out of a 4 year relationship and was like “well that was a waste of time” and I feel like I’ve been chasing time back since. It wasn’t a waste of time though and things ended for the better. These things are what makes us, us and I think you have to let go of the fact that how you believed things would go in your life, doesn’t always work out that way and that is completely ok. I am someone who tries and tries to make sure everything is the best it can possibly be, however it doesn’t matter what measures and plans etc you put in place, it is not possible for things to be of a high standard all the time. Although it won’t stop me from trying haha, I am much more accepting of how things turn out to be now, than I once was. It really is important to not get hung up on the things you feel like you should have done or goals you should have accomplished and instead focus on the now.
I turned 29 on the 12th June and I was fairly ok with it until it got to June and then I was starting to feel a bit like I don’t really want this to happen. Not sure why I think like that, I can’t exactly change it unfortunately, no one has invented anything yet that keeps you at a certain age. I always start analyzing the year I’ve had and I’m very harsh, very critical and I wish I could change that straight away but we are all works in progress and I will get there. The sorts of things I look at is, have I been living or just been present, have I grown, what I’ve done in that time, what I have learnt etc, etc. The outcome was the second half of being 28 was definitely better than the first half, and compared to other years I have had more good things to say about the 28th year of my life. I feel like I definitely did more with the year, some relationships got stronger, I’ve grown more as a person, found love for some things again and just had more positive things to say about my year, which is definitely a step forward.
On the day of turning 29, it was actually a really nice day to welcome in the new number. My boyfriend arranged for us to go to the zoo because I love animals, especially tigers and I got to see them which made it more special. I received a lot of lovely birthday wishes as well which I was taken aback by. Not because I think I’m a horrible person, but I can only speak for myself when you wonder sometimes like if you matter. I think because of the day I had, I didn’t think about the age I was turning at all and I’ve been fairly I don’t know if calm is the right word, but on that kind of wave length since. One thing I have started feeling is that 29 is still young, 30 is still young, being in your 30’s is not old and so I’m starting to change my mindset on things. We are very privileged in being able to choose which direction we want our life to go in and if we don’t like that direction then we can change on that and build on something else. The future will be good, no matter what age we are.
For me it’s trying to work out why I feel getting older is a bad thing and in reality some of it comes down to comparison. I’ve talked before about social media and how we can compare ourselves and sometimes we feel like we haven’t reached certain milestones in life before we should have. It’s not those that I have on social medias faults, but I can recognise that having people I compare to, is not great for me and so it’s either time to unfollow or mute for the time being and instead filling it with people that are at a similar stage to me. Now my mindset is slightly different, I look at my 20’s as like a practice run. You experience a lot of firsts and setbacks etc, that now prepares you better when it comes to potentially facing similar situations again. As much as I’m not a fan of the unknown, there is still so much of the unknown to happen, whether that’s new achievements or opportunities, some of your best moments are still yet to come and that itself is exciting.
Being able to age is not something that is guaranteed. We don’t know what age we are going to reach and when our clock runs out. Rather than worrying about getting older and where we think we should be at by that number, we should just live for the now and the moment. The harsh reality is we will not have this day to live over again. Of course there is nothing wrong with planning for the future but we need to focus on the present more otherwise we are going to miss out on that. Patience is key, and just because something might not be happening for us right now, doesn’t mean it never will. We need to take off the pressure sometimes, be kinder to ourselves and not to expect it from us to have everything figured out in one day. There is still so much left we are yet to discover and we should enjoy the process as to finding out what those things are. Every life is unique and I believe as individuals we are all where we are meant to be in our stories.
How do you feel about getting older?
Amy x
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