Today is my birthday. I’m twenty-eight years old.
If someone had asked me if there was anything special about turning twenty-eight, I would have said no. Sixteen, twenty-one, twenty-five, thirty – yes, those are special. You know they are because they sell cards specifically for those numbers. When was the last time you saw a birthday card addressed “Happy Twenty eight! What a milestone!”
But I think twenty-eight is important.
I never thought about it until Pixie mentioned it in her page on the Another Girl at Play site, but twenty eight seems to be when a lot of people start to come into their own. You’ve either done the college thing or travelled a lot. You’ve probably settled down and begun to get over a lot of your own insecurities and figure out what you want. Chances are you’ve had several different jobs and even careers and you realise you’re two years away from Thirty. You start to think about things more and what you want out of life. Twenty-eight does that for you. Probably because you’re old enough to be daring and brave, but still young enough to get away with it.
Also, for a lot of us, twenty-eight brings you your tenth high school reunion. You start to reflect on what has happened in the last 10 years since you got your freedom. You start to think about yourself at eighteen and the ideals you had and the life you wanted. You ask yourself if you’ve become a disappointment or something to be proud of.
I think I am something to be proud of.
Looking back at my ten years, I realise that in a strange way I’ve come full circle. I feel closer to my eighteen year old self now than to who I was at twenty-five. At eighteen, I felt the world was there for me, waiting for me to jump into it. I felt like anything was possible and was excited at everything I didn’t know about. Fear wasn’t ever in my head – I was too excited about starting new adventures and learning about life to ever think I’d fail at something. At eighteen, I wasn’t concerned about plans and where I ought to be. I just simple was content to be in the moment. At twenty five, I was concerned more with getting to work on time at 8am, putting reports together, if my boss would yell at me, if my income was acceptable enough, if I was progressing in my career fast enough and if I was failing. I felt like I wasn’t where I needed to be and I didn’t know who I was. I suffered greatly.
Now, at twenty-eight, I am slowly learning to live again as I need to. I’m learning to just jump into life without worrying about failure. I’m willing to risk looking like a fool for a happy life. I’m experimenting with art, finding pleasure in saying yes, and accepting adventure without question. I’m feeling secure in myself again, because I’ve found myself again. I still have fear and am still insecure at times, but I do not suffer anymore or wish I were someone else.
So for me, twenty-eight is a big deal. When I go to my reunion this year I know I won’t be the richest, the most successful or the one with the smallest ass. But that’s ok. Because at twenty-eight, I’m totally living the way I want to be. And that, in itself, is an accomplishment.
Side Note:
After I wrote this, Summer Pierre (who became a musician at 28) sent me the following email:
Just to add to your thesis about the age of 28, here are some famous women who also changed their lives at 28:
- Anne Sexton wrote her first poem at age 28 after watching a TV program entitled ‘The Sonnet’
- Georgia O’Keeffe literally destroyed all of her previous work and declared ‘If I can’t live as I want, I might as well paint as I want.” She began creating through her won language of shape and form.
- Annie Dillard, after recovering from a near deathly bout of pneumonia, decided to live only as she wanted to. She moved to Tinker Creek in Virginia and began writing her first book, the Pulitzer Prize winning Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.”
The Chronicles of Girl at Play began in April 2001 as a way for me to chronicle my leaving a successful corporate position to become a self-employed writer.
