1 post tagged “30”

I realized today that I'm just tired. There has been this feeling inside me for awhile now. I couldn't really identify it. My best friend clarified it when we had one of our marathon conversations this weekend.

She chalks it all up to the nearness of 30. (I have another year to go, but the theory still works.) 30 is the age, she says, where you really start getting a clarity about who you are, where you start seriously shifting out what doesn't work for you anymore.

The feeling? It's a feeling of, pardon me, not giving a flying rat fuck about the stuff I normally cared about. I don't know if the argument/disagreement I'm having with my dad is the root of it, but it's definitely a part of it.

Look, I'm a nice person. This is something I've prided myself on since...forever. I've spent an inordinate amount of time believing that "nice" had something to do with being considerate of others' feelings to the point where you don't speak or do without considering and planning for the reactions of others.

It has not been until this tête-à-tête with my father (unfortunate, sad, and hard for me) that I realized that I have spent too much time trying to control things that I simply cannot. There is a quote card on my board at work that says, "What other people think of me is none of my business."

I have spent a whole lifetime NOT believing that. I made it my business. And that's where my energy went. I would find myself feeling exhausted on some days, and not quite understanding why.

Making yourself the power-of-attorney of other people's bullshit is exhausting.

And without realizing it, I've been doing things that are attempts to create a new kind of energy. Without connecting the dots, I've been doing the great purge. I've been very concerned about getting rid of things I don't need. I've given away bags upon bags of clothing, donated books, sold CDs and DVDs, rearranged furniture, done massive cleanings of my house, taken inventory of my belongings. And oh yeah, my beliefs. I've been saying things that, two years ago, I wouldn't dream of saying (hence my argument with my father). I've been setting boundaries that I was afraid to set before. I've cut my freaking hair. I've lost/am losing weight.

I've been obsessed with the notion of space and making room, marveling at how finishing school has created room for so many wonderful people and developments in my life.

In short, my whole life for about the past year or more has subconsciously, has been out with the old, and in the with the new. I'm shedding this...crap.

And I had a conversation today. The conversation made me tired. Afterwards, I started writing a poem about feeling tired, and recognizing patterns, and starting to shift what it is that makes you feel alive. Not the bullshit, but everything underneath that, after you've scraped all the crap off.

The soul as burnt toast? I dunno. I'm just saying. And in the process, I find I have no patience for explaining myself anymore, for censoring myself, for holding myself back, for allowing people to impose their stuff on me, for not being straight up and honest about where I'm coming from.

And all I can say is, maybe it has to do with getting close to 30. Maybe not.

Either way, "it's the beginning of the new age..."