Reporting & Essays - Milestones & Memoirs

By Kimberly Friedman

In retrospect, I suppose I should have seen it coming. Very early in the twenty-ninth year of my life, I grew weary of snarky anticipatory remarks about “the big 3-0” and “enjoying it while I can.” I felt like these comments were always uttered with barely disguised glee by someone substantially older than me who seemed (like an employee at a Halloween haunted house) to relish the idea of the horrors that lay just around the corner. It was as if they possessed some sort of classified been-there done-that knowledge that my impending transition from twenty-nine to thirty served as enlistment into the ranks of the frail and incontinent. The notion that the close of my twenties heralded the end of being able to enjoy my life felt antiquated and plain silly. Although generally irritated, my typical response was a breezy Sex and The City reference. At the time, I didn’t see the point of engaging these individuals on the topic of aging. All milestone birthdays come with some degree of cliché commentary. I had lived through countless variations of “Motorists Beware!” at sixteen, “R-Rated movies, cigarettes, and porn!” at eighteen, and “Stock the bar!” at twenty-one. Although the “thirty comments” felt uglier and less playful somehow, I chalked them up to rites of passage.

The thing is, I had actually been looking forward to my milestone birthday. In the interest of full disclosure, I should note that my twenties were not particularly fabulous. Among the lowlights was a tumultuous six -year relationship that basically broke me, some astoundingly irresponsible behavior on my part, which strained my relationship with my parents and a general loss of self and purpose. Toward the end of my twenties I began to find footing again. Although wholly symbolic, I began to view thirty as a signifier of the end of what had been a confusing and erratic era. Moreover, I started to become aware of a need to stop and take stock of myself. I have since jokingly (but not at all dismissively) referred to this process as “weeding my internal garden.”

I’m reminded of hearing my mom and dad tell a story at a family dinner that occurred sometime in my late teens. The story had to do with some mischief they engaged in as a young couple. I remember with utter clarity listening to the story and being struck with the knowledge that my parents were actual people. I know it sounds silly, but until that point I had been living in a haze of childhood that, in my experience, mandated that parents were beings of almost mythical proportions. It wasn’t until I had a certain amount of life experience under my belt that I was able to grasp the particular truth that my parents, albeit wonderful, were fallible human creatures, each with their own set of wisdom, regrets and lessons learned. Similarly, it wasn’t until my late twenties that I was able to grasp certain truths about myself. Weeding my internal garden was and continues to be a thrilling experience. Admittedly, I absolutely understand the dread associated with (and shamelessly try to thwart) the external signs of aging. What saddens me is that this aspect of aging is so often thrust into the spotlight as opposed to the extraordinary triumph of intellectual aging. At twenty-nine, I felt strong and emboldened with a renewed grasp on my place in the world.

I couldn’t have been less prepared for the receiving end of society’s impression of an unmarried, childless thirty-year-old woman. Judging by the behavior of my mother, a well-meaning aunt, various women’s magazines, some evil bastard whose blog I stumbled upon and a ridiculously ornery woman from whom I rent storage space, you would have thought that approximately one minute after my inauguration into thirtydom my eggs began shriveling at a horrifyingly head-spinning rate. Worse, not only are my potential babies evaporating like vampires in the sun, there is not a man in sight to rescue them from the cruel fate that awaits them in my decaying uterus. Worst of all, I don’t seem to be terribly concerned about it. Apparently, I am incomplete, a failure as a woman and I cannot possibly be happy. According to said evil bastard’s blog, all women thirty and over fall into one of the following four categories: married, pregnant, married and pregnant, or desperate. So, yeah, ostensibly I’m desperate to boot.  I am not blind to the fact that our culture is fraught with injustice, inequality and sometimes sheer dumbness. I understood a long time ago that according to the majority, youth is a commodity, age is an affliction and we are oftentimes measured by the same standards despite our vast differences. I understand, but I am perplexed and, again, more than a little annoyed. It seems that while I have been busy measuring the current me against the past me, and analyzing the differences, other people have been measuring the current me against my married female peers. Evidently, there is no need to closely analyze the differences; I clearly seemed to come up lacking. I became puzzled and disheartened to find newly thirty me asking “Do I really?”

I have answered with a resounding “Hell no.” I am not remotely anti-marriage or anti-children, but I am not clamoring to experience either first-hand at the moment. Perhaps my biological clock is slow. Or perhaps I am just not confusing the ridiculous societal drumbeat to marry, marry, marry by thirty as a ticking clock. I cannot help but laugh at the delirium of some women regarding marriage. I blame Disney and those damned fairy tales. The belief that marriage is a big, fancy “princess” wedding followed by a horse-drawn carriage ride into happily ever after is simply inane. Viewed in terms of societal propaganda, however, it’s quite chilling.

I would think that given the unfettered ferocity of escalating divorce rates in this country, we would all pull back in a collective “Whoa!” and begin to nurture caution rather than inferiority complexes. Interestingly, divorced women in their thirties seem to have it somewhat easier than never-been-married women in terms of society’s regard. It’s as if a woman who hasn’t been married, successfully or otherwise, by thirty is considered to be damaged goods. Recently while discussing my single status with another woman she exclaimed “I don’t understand—there’s nothing wrong with you!” In another conversation with a different woman, I was warned to be vigilant about “putting myself out there” while I was “still pretty” so that I could snag a man. I just can’t help but be incredulous when people say things like this to me. I have recently started to make a conscious effort to simply disregard such statements the way I would disregard someone telling me the earth was flat or up is down. I know my own truth and it does not include pressure to do anything simply because of the numbers on my most recent birthday card. For everyone who seems to be so inexplicably interested, I will never ever embark on a crazed hunt for a husband regardless of my age or the unwelcome appearance of wrinkles in my mirror. If I meet the right person, I will happily hang my single hat.  Until then, I choose me.