to care or not to care

 I guess, ideally, it would be better not to care.

I turned 30 yesterday.
France is on lockdown again, so celebrations are limited to, well, to the same as last year: nothing.
And I guess it’s fine. I’ve spent so much time pretending I didn’t care about my birthday that I shouldn’t be surprised when no one is aware of it.
In a way it’s quite ironical: I started doing that to avoid the disappointment of people not celebrating it. If I don’t tell them, then I can’t be disappointed when they don’t remember it. Mission accomplished?

My mother sent me a message on the family group chat. My siblings added theirs.
I had seen my mother’s side of the family on Sunday so it wasn’t surprising that no one called yesterday.
My father’s mother sent me an email one day early before pointing out by text that she knew the date but she had thought we were the 7 on Monday. Better early than late, she concluded.
My father’s brother sent me a text.
My mother in law sent a text and called. Just to be sure. It was awkward, but it was nice of her.

H, despite his rising anxiety, wished me a happy birthday first thing when he emerged from our bedroom.
My friend who lives in Japan and with whom I only talk every once in a while remembered and sent me a message.
One of my newest friends sent me a text. I think she remembered the discussion we had had on why my birthday usually made me sad.
My group chat friends sent me messaged in the evening, even though I don’t often interact with them.

A while ago I decided I would stop trying to maintain friendships in which I was the only one keeping in touch.
It’s hard not to feel guilty, like I was betraying someone.
But it’s because the disappointment just stings too much.
I got a text in the evening, sometime after midnight. I had gone to sleep already.
It felt like an afterthought.
Like they just saw the date and went “oh shit” and shot a text my way.
Is that all I am for you now? An afterthought?
You say you love me but how am I supposed to know? Your birthday present is still in my living room, waiting for an opportunity to see you.
I guess living with my father doesn’t help.
He only remembered this morning.
He texted me that he would call later today. I was half of a mind to tell him not to bother.
I can’t blame him. I only wished his a couple of days after the right date.
I guess our relationship can’t really suffer anymore. We’d need to have one for that.

That’s not true. We do have some kind of relationship.
but we function just as well as cats and dogs.
I have no doubt that he loves me. I’m just not really a priority.
My father is a problem solver who relies on the validation he gets from feeling useful and needed. There’s nothing wrong with that. I function the same way.
He will always be here to repair stuff, build stuff, drive somewhere. If there is something he can /do/, he’ll do it in a blink of an eye.
But if there is no /action/ to be done, then he is at loss. Emotional work has never been his strong suit.
Home’s never been a place to find emotional comfort.
So I’ve grown never to depend on people for emotional support and to deal with my problems on my own.
Strong and independent.
So if I don’t need anything fixed, my father doesn’t really have any reason to interact with me I guess.
It’s okay. We’ve never been a very tight knit family.
And yet, sometimes I wish we were a bit less stubborn and a bit more caring.

Why can’t I just shake off the bitter taste of disappointment?
What can’t I just be satisfied with what I have?
Why can’t I just let go?

My friends will come in 10 days. It doesn’t matter that none of them remembered on the date. They’ll be here for me and we’ll celebrate together.
It won’t matter. Right?

A letter to who I used to the future

 

I am turning thirty soon, and I thought I could use this milestone to look on what life has taught me so far.
This is a letter to who I used to be,

You don’t know me, but I know you.

Ten years ago, I was turning twenty. I was both a child and an adult; terrified of never succeeding in becoming the latter, without being fully the former either anymore.
At twenty, I was feeling both invincible and already defeated. I wanted to conquer the world but felt I was already running out of time to do so.
Twenty is an odd age: It is old enough to have face challenges and experienced trauma, but young enough to feel that the world belongs to us.
I’ve always harboured, despite my best efforts, a sense of dread that I was meant to do something, as well as an all devouring dread that I was running out of time to do so.
At twenty, I felt that I needed to make each day count and live to the fullest. I had to. Or else.
Or else what exactly? Was I afraid to fail at… life? Can someone fail at life?
Where did this unshakable sense of urgency come from?
I’ve had time to ask myself that in the last months while contemplating how to celebrate my third decade in this time of plague.
So far I have come down with two things: Fear of missing out and ageism.
First let’s address the all-encompassing feeling that I needed to do something that counted, something that mattered, something remarkable.
I partly blame this on my love for adventure novels and the unreasonable expectations of what life could be it gave me and a very deep-rooted fear of missing out.
The Fear Of Missing Out (or FOMO) is a feeling that others are experiencing better things and living over all fuller lives than you are and that you are, on some level, missing out a fundamental aspect of life. It usually damages self-esteem and involves a certain envy towards people whose experience of life seems more complete.[i]
The term itself was coined in 1996 by Dr Dan Herman, a marketing strategist, in a research paper.[ii]
Though the feeling itself is not new, it has gained more coverage in the last decades as the feeling is acerbated by Social Media.
We live in a hyper-documented society, in which social media allows us to see almost live, what is happening in other people’s lives. This can lead to an overwhelming sense of social expectations and make us feel inadequate in comparison.
And it is a difficult feeling to escape when scrolling down our social media feed.
And for the longest time, I know I fell prey to it.
I sometimes still do.
I felt that what I was doing was not as good, not as interesting, as what others were doing. My daily life often felt subpar to what I perceived life was supposed to be.
One of the ways to work around it I found was simply to avoid social media. No more Facebook, no Instagram, no snapchat, no network whose goal is to document my life.
It took time and effort to stop wondering what other people were doing or to wonder what they would think of what I was doing.
On the other hand, there was the constant dread of being running out of time.
This is something I still struggle with today.
It comes from Ageism.
According to the World Health Organization, Ageism is: “Ageism is the stereotyping and discrimination against individuals or groups on the basis of their age. Ageism can take many forms, including prejudicial attitudes, discriminatory practices, or institutional policies and practices that perpetuate stereotypical beliefs.”[iii]
It might sound weird to claim to suffer from it while being so young, but Ageism doesn’t actually affects only old people. For a very simple reason: we are all going to be old at some point, and society doesn’t like old people.[iv]
Old people are presented as frail, dependent, rigid in their morals and incapable of change. Society celebrates youth and vilifies old age.
Look at the media you consume and ask yourself, how old are the protagonists that shape your understanding of society?
Beauty standards present aging as something shameful that should be hidden under hair dyes and combated with creams and serums.
Unsurprisingly, this affects women more than men.
From our youngest age, we are told that only the young are actors of change. and shown that growing old equals becoming dull. Uninteresting. Useless.
This leads to body dissatisfaction, anxiety and unsurprisingly, with the constant dread of being running out of time, even at a rather young age.
In her Ted talk[v], writer and activist Ashton Applewhite explains how ageism is, like all discriminations, a human-made concept that hurts society at large.
Accepting that I soon won’t be in my twenties anymore and that I haven’t done anything even remotely important as been a process. Is a process.
Though using the time I have wisely and thriving to live to the fullest is a good things, I often have to remind myself that I should first and foremost thrive to enjoy the time I have, living in the present rather than constantly thinking ahead, picturing what comes next before having even lived the now.
Letting go of the idea that life is short and that only the first half really matters. That success isn’t limited to the first four decades of one’s existence and that aging should not mean going to waste.

In a surprising turn of even, a lot of those reflections took shape during lock down, when I realized than for me, being deprived of any option to go out and meet people and travel and go on adventures was actually a relief. It gave me permission to stay at home and only do what I wanted to. I suddenly didn’t feel guilty for not being doing something.
Don’t get me wrong: I love going out with my friends, but lock down gave me the opportunity to reflect of why I always felt like I needed to be out, what made me feel like I had to be witnessed having fun for it to be real.
In that regard, I know I am one of a very small number of lucky people who didn’t suffer from the lockdown.

So to you whom I was ten years ago,
Enjoy the small things that life throws your way and stop looking for the one great big moment when “your life will truly begin”. Because it will never come and because you are already living it.
Remember that no one else is you and that only you can fully appreciate the way you live your life. Be yourself and accept who you are.
It’s okay if you’re not special. It’s okay if you never do anything remarkable. You do not actually need to live your entire life wondering what legacy you will leave after your die. Start by actually living each day in a way that makes you feel good.
In a noise of social media, ask yourself what social media bring you and do not feel obligated to contribute to them more solely because that’s what other people do. Your time is yours and you should spend it doing what you like, not what you think people would find cool.
To you, who are turning twenty, know that this is a unique chapter of your life, but so are all the others. There is no requirement to meet to turn thirty so stop focusing on who you think you have to become and actually start thinking about who you want to become and why.
And it’s fine if it changes.
Have fun and take care of yourself. There is only one you and nothing is worth damaging yourself. No job, no love story, no great adventure is worth it. Give it your best, but don’t sacrifice yourself.
I wish you to find things that are worth the time you invest in them and that you learn to know and trust yourself. You’re probably terrified at the idea of choosing a path for your future, but let me tell you a little secret: It’s okay if you get it wrong. Several times. They aren’t failures, they are adventures. Veni, Vidi, who cares if you Vici. You experienced and that’s all that mattered. There is not one good way to live your life, so don’t be afraid to try different things.

And to you who I might be in ten years.
When I was a teen I never imagined I’d reach the great old age of thirty, but here I am. So what does being forty will look like?
So far I have discovered that much about never succeeding to become an adult was unfounded: I can both pay my taxes and buy a house and sleep with a dinosaur plush and enjoy Sundays in my pajamas wearing my favorite Thumper slippers. I can love cartoons and be taken seriously at work.
I hope that the next ten years will bring adventures, big and small and that I will know how to enjoy both.
To you who is turning forty, I wish you to have done things you’re proud of. They don’t need to be big, they just need to make you go “I did that.” Just valuable enough that they make you feel good.

And to all of us, I hope you are happy. Not rich, not successful, not remarkable, just happy.

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[i] https://www.verywellmind.com/how-to-cope-with-fomo-4174664

[ii] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/bm.2000.23

[iii] https://www.who.int/westernpacific/news/q-a-detail/ageing-ageism

[iv] https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/sep/14/the-ugly-truth-about-ageism-its-a-prejudice-targeting-our-future-selves

[v] https://www.ted.com/talks/ashton_applewhite_let_s_end_ageism