In six months the stars are going to align and one great and terrible celestial event is going to occur.
I am going to turn 30.
I've been feeling pretty sanguine about it these last few years because one time I read (I think it was in US Weekly or maybe In Touch, you know the one that's 99 cents at the Walgreens) that in your 30's you feel more comfortable in your skin and you stop caring about what other people think. I latched on to that comment made by Ms. Barrymore or maybe Ms. Jolie (but hey, at least I'm not quoting Oprah or the white devil Sue Monk Kidd, right?) and I've been cradling it alone in my bed all these dark nights as the earth dies and so does my youth and 30 grows nearer from it's loom-spot on the horizon like an evil spitting orc army from which there is no escape.
The unfortunate truth, however, is that now, at almost exactly 29.5, I feel less secure than ever. I feel down right neurotic. I think I may actually have had more self-confidence at the age of 16 than I do right now.
Which actually makes sense, when you think about it. Most of us have had it pretty easy all our lives when we're 16. We're too young to be bitter, or failed, or feel old or crusty. We're trying so hard to fit in that we have yet to notice all the ways in which we don't. And we were told, us cozy little 80's Reganomic babies, that the world was ours. We had no reason to know any different. Not yet. Not then.
So instead of sinking into myself all zen-like and content, like I am a cat and my personality is a sunspot on the rug that I have now earned the right to luxuriate in permanently, I'm spending a lot of time fretting. About how I come off. About what other people think. About other's opinions of me. And it's sucking up my power. (The power of now, the power of my zen, of my true self, my north star, the holy spirit within me, however the hell you want to put it, cowgirl, it's all the same to me. Feel free to believe differently). It's sucking out all my ambitions and my ability to take confident steps in any direction. Basically I huddle shivering in a corner with this sick pit in my belly. I bite my nails. I laugh nervously. I feel homely and unattractive. And I can't muster up the vim, the ovaries, the Razzmatazz, if you will (I will if you won't), to do anything about it. To save myself from this absolute failure of. . . of myself.
But then--there's something in you, you know? That keeps kicking when you're down, that chatters away at all the unruly edges of your soul, the untended garden, the place where the bracken and bramble has taken hold. That little voice, that still small voice (oh don't get your knickers in a twist, it's just a phrase, as far as I know the Mormons haven't copy-righted it). The rest of me is catatonically picking out my eyebrows but that little voice keeps chirping in and saying, and you'll pardon my French: Who the hell cares? Who the hell cares? Who the hell cares??
I don't know if this is a good thing or not. The voice, well, it's a lot like the voice of this here blog post--a little angry, a bit abrasive, undeniably defensive; it's having trouble finding much humor in it all. I don't know if it's going to mellow out into that Sun Spot in my soul and leave me all content and 30-ish and you know--Grown Up. If it's going to help me find my Pluck again--or if it's going to ice over and grow a crust 'top of that and in three or four years I'm going to be walking around unshowered and launching in to angry diatribes at perfectly lovely cocktail parties, because it's just desperate to prove WHO THE HELL CARES.
I hope the voice of this post does not offend. I just feel rubbed a little raw.
I am Vesuvius and I am not in your way. No need to push me again.