maybe we're not built to age "gracefully"

on learning and growing authentically

Today, I saw an older man jump into the sea with more vigour and motivation than I, a seemingly vibrant package of youth, sitting cautiously by the shore had and thought for a moment about how comforting it must be to have years of experience to back up your impulses.

I started the foundations of this essay looking into the Mediterranean Sea from Croatia.

I’m quickly reminded of a younger me, obsessed with planning my life in stages, all of equal duration and years. My favourite sequences were every two and four. Perhaps, at twelve, claiming to have lived through three such stages, or even six, was my attempt at stealing wisdom beyond my reach and looking for meaning in an otherwise random occurrence. I wanted to be like the Earth orbiting around the Sun, something stable, something measurable and most importantly, vital.

Now, of course, I look for proof of such an existence everywhere, like in the faces of people laughing at my jokes. Or when I caress my shoulder with my thumb. In the comments under my Substack posts or the texts on my phone. I started watching the waves form in the water and see little mountains rising—a million little peaks and troughs. I marvelled at nature’s talent and think about how everything is the same. There are mountains of rock and ash, and there are mountains of water and ice. These aqueous ones come and go faster than those from Earth, so perhaps it’s alright for time to work differently with me, as it does with these.

And oh, how I wish I had come to this sentiment a little earlier. At every age, I prescribed a goal informed by what I thought would indicate a blossoming life. The romance books I obsessed over told me I needed a partner, preferably soon, so I could experience ‘young love’ before life got too serious. The early 2000s TV shows proved that if I got a small and comfortable one-bedroom loft with exposed brick wall straight out of university, I would be content. Speaking of university, that would go by without a hitch too. (Allegedly). My birthday, being right bang smack in the middle of summer, seemed almost too divine for me not to be a chronic overthinker/planner. As each academic year passed, my birthday seemed the perfect opportunity to look back and take inventory of the good, bad, and the ugly. If I wasn’t impressed, I had another five weeks to pull myself up and strategise. Although I meant well, my planning wasn’t about being prepared. It was about protecting myself from uncertainty, from failure, and the unpredictability of growing.

If you were obsessed with Debby Ryan’s Sweet 16 movie, we are cut from the same cloth.

In those summer months, I became a relentless warden. Sometimes I still am. The rigid protocol I initiated for ageing as I ‘should’ became a sort of iron cage that shook and tightened with each setback of which there were many. You see, I left no room for the actual living of it all, beyond the achievements and labels. Because when you’re young and happy, it’s hard to imagine a different possibility. The only thing between you and your goals is time, a concept so removed from your immediate influence that you have to surrender to it. There’s nothing personal about the distance separating you and your desires.

But then you breathe, and with each breath you think and do, and talk and move, and suddenly you’ve made decisions and so have other people. Now, time isn’t the only barrier; it’s an entire web of life in your way. Now, it’s personal. Missing a milestone you planned or an ideal you’ve nurtured seems to be down to your ineptitude. The idea of ‘unfairness’ takes root and intoxicates. Ageing stops being passive. It becomes about choices, circumstances, people and reactions.

It feels like ageing, once something that happens to you, becomes something you actively do, and in a way, you become reborn. You’re no longer a passive witness to the progression of time; you’re an active participant, one with autonomy, no matter how clumsy it is. This transformation often coincides with ‘leaving the nest’. We become these baby lambs, learning to walk for the first time without the comfort of your mother. We quiver. We tremble.

For some of us, it starts all too early. We start taking initiative not because we are ready but because we have to. Life for us is chaos. Every choice you make is unsure but sincere, like kissing someone after a long hiatus. There is nothing graceful about this, but it’s tentative and earnest all the same. You try because you must. When some things inevitably don’t work out, it doesn’t feel like fate; it feels like punishment. It feels like being denied the reward of all your hard work.

They say we should age gracefully, but what if we weren’t built for it? What if we were built for trying, and trembling, and starting over?

I’m wrapping this essay two days before my birthday, which feels like an appropriate time to rewatch 16 Candles.

Anger would be a natural reaction to these near misses or distorted dreams, followed closely by sadness, but I think we often overlook poor anger. Perhaps because we’re taught to constantly accept things as they are almost immediately, making expressing any anger a pointless and futile endeavour. But it’s anger that keeps you up at night. Intensified frustration over a missed opportunity. It’s anger that makes you lash out at a friend over what was thought to be a dead issue. A treasure trove of unprocessed feelings that’s quite irresistible. We call it jealousy, bitterness or self-sabotage when it’s just grief, a burning flame.

I once believed that grace meant having restraint. That being mature would let me bypass the hurt. I was quite wrong.

It’s in confronting the mismanagement of my anger that I uncovered how clumsy and brutal ageing can be. You see, I was under the impression that I was doing quite well with ‘moving on’. The constant overanalysing of one’s decisions sedates you with that false sense of control. I chose not to‘waste’ time picking fights or ruminating over old wounds. I gave people grace. I moved on. I overthought my way out of many confrontations and thought them resolved at each annual audit. Each year, when asked about my birthday, I’d say I felt calm and prepared. It was going to come around anyway, so what could I do? Unfortunately, the knowledge of a hurtling comet doesn’t make its burning entry into the atmosphere any less destructive.

I may not have actively chosen to confront those feelings, but it happens with or without your input. I’ve broken down in public, been sharp with loved ones, self-sabotaged, denied myself opportunities. All a haphazard attempt to deal with unresolved feelings.

And then of course there’s the trouble of other people, so there’s no hope for the absence of messiness or strife. We aren’t lone planets orbiting quietly in space. It’s more like stars of a tangled galaxy; we live amongst each other. This alone, to me, makes the messiness worth it. It’s almost impossible to find people you exist with in perfect equilibrium. I will snag and fray against people constantly, in the most mundane and intimate ways. Any illusion that this can be done gracefully will probably rob me of the beauty of learning how to live cohesively. The fun is in the struggle.

It’s absurd to expect it to be smooth sailing. Humans are borderline magicians, but we’re not that good. The occurrence of two people so perfectly suited to one another is so rare we call it love. Even love is not without its messes.

If there is any grace to be had whilst ageing, perhaps it’s in facing the storm open and honestly, without hiding behind the comfort of false pretences and porous defences. Maybe that’s the secret the ageing, not to try and master it but to meet it head-on on scary and all.

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Hey guys, I hope you enjoyed this essay. It’s a kind of strange mash-up of reflections I had to quickly note down in my notes app whilst I was on holiday. I never really feel compelled to write about ageing or my birthday, but apparently this was the year! Officially 21 on the 24th!

As per usual, you can find me on TikTok, Instagram (daily media recommendations) and Arca (curated recommendations)