According to some people, celebrating the 29th anniversary for a second time 😀 is a turning point in a person’s life, so a quick retrospective seems somehow natural.
When I was little, I suffered greatly from the fact that my birthday was just before the first school day – a day that memorates the end to the carefree summer vacation and the beginning of the school year. Such a depression! 😀
After many years I no longer go to school. Hooray!
However, someone or something around me secretly (or quite obviously, Grandma! 😁) whispers that every next birthday takes me away from the carefree youth and takes me a year closer to two scary words for adults – “maturity” and “wrinkles”. .. That is a depression now! 😅
It is the 30th anniversary that is seen as some sort of a deadline for these two words, the end of a grace period of a kind for turning the child into an adult.
The first word – “maturity”, everyone expects from us, and from the second one we desperately want to escape.
And I wonder what is it so scary about them?
I guess it’s because of the expectation that as “mature” people at this age we should have decided everything (or almost everything) significant about our lives, knowing the answers to all the “important” questions (if we haven’t already) such as – who will I marry, where will I settle, how many children do I want to have and what will their names be, what career path I will follow, Barcelona or Real Madrid, Audi or BMW…
…and it is also expected already (not in the same order, of course): to have learned to fill in tax returns, have read enough “serious” books, go to the theatre regularly, be able to cook healthy and balanced food for us and others in our household, know at least 3-4 languages, talk about politics, go to the gym regularly, have traveled to at least a dozen countries and at least 2-3 continents, be able to unclog canals, cook amazing roast beef and chocolate souffle, etc. etc. 😀
And in such moments, we panic that we don’t know how to do half of these adult skills.
However, maturity is not about knowing the answers to all questions. Maturity is to accept that you don’t and won’t have all the answers even as an adult. Knowing that each and every day is the first school day, and you will always be a student no matter how old you are.
What about the wrinkles?
I welcome this “special” anniversary with wrinkles of laughter on my face – a sure sign that the time lived so far has been worth it, and I make a wish that in a decade time they would double (as a minimum)!
Thank you, from the bottom of my heart to all of you I blame for the smile on my face! I know that the best is yet to come, and I can’t wait for the next chapter, full of smiles, even more wrinkles, and true moments in the school of life!