Earning Thirty | By Pam Stewart

I am Earning Thirty. And by that I mean, I think it’s time to let the ‘hot mess’ part of me die: I think I am ready to stop falling apart.  

There’s a self-involvement to it, to being the one who’s always falling apart at the seams; to feeling like your crises are more important and legitimate than those surviving their own battles all around you.  Maybe it’s the inexperience of youth to believe that you are in need of saving more so than the chick beside you on the bus -- but I think I’m ready to grow out of this stage.  I’m ready to recognize the struggle that everyone else is battling.  I can now give my emergencies credit but not distinction.

Falling apart has really served well me in my twenties.  Having an immobilising fear of confrontation, there have been many times in my life when I’ve cried very genuinely out of fear of disappointing an authority figure.  I was once running late to my first day at a new job, I was throwing up due to undiagnosed acid reflux (a fairly legitimate excuse), and I started to cry when explaining the situation to my boss.  Subconsciously, I think I had started to cry as a way of showing her how seriously I took my tardiness: I hated being late and was mortified, but my tears weren’t my body’s response to stress.  They were an unconscious negotiation between my head and my body to demonstrate my appreciation for the gravity of the situation.  I can’t remember when I learned this approach.  I don’t think it’s phony or manipulative, I think I learnt as a little girl that if I’m afraid or upset or apologetic and in tears, people will be gentler with their reproach and let me express myself fully.  

In the midst of me falling apart in front of my new (short-lived) boss, I had the thought: I don’t need to do this anymore.  I understand where I erred and how to hold myself accountable, but I can absolve myself.  I don’t need this stranger to tell me what’s right and wrong, or what standard I need to hold myself to at work, and I don’t need her to forgive me.  I am the only one who needs to do all that.  It was maybe the closest I’ve had to a bat mitzvah (not Jewish, after all). I realised that I am fully capable of accepting the consequences of my actions and not killing myself over it with regret.  Instead, just moving on and behaving differently in the future.  My extreme sensitivity makes me grateful for the times I was treated gently, but I am now at a point where I don’t need to be treated gently: I now need to be respected.

Sometimes I think I’ve fallen apart as a means of creating intimacy with someone immediately instead of allowing it to develop organically; and likely due to my girlhood socialization, being or appearing to be ‘too strong’ is a fear of mine.  That perhaps if I am too capable then people will think I don’t need them and their love.  So crying and needing emotional support became my way of showing others my desire for closeness.

But sometimes, the panic and ensuing meltdowns are the result of genuine, irrational fear.  Fear of the unknown and/or the consequences of adulthood.  So many times lying in bed at night, a minor workplace scenario or fear of making rent that month has gotten bigger and bigger in my head.  And then a tension will grip my chest.  Regardless of the fact that just a few hours ago, in the daylight, with all external circumstances unchanged, everything seemed manageable and under control.  But in that moment I become convinced that this time?  I really won’t survive.  

I am ready to see that as many times as my world has ended -- it hasn’t.  

There’s a composure I see in women who’ve become mothers.  Almost like a realization that someone’s got to get shit handled and no one else seems to be stepping up.  I admire it and I wish to emulate it even if I never have children.  I see a similar strength and assurance in women as they reach their 30s, 40s and beyond.  

I have been little for so long.  Being the ‘baby’ of the family, I think it’s taken me until now to realize that ‘little’ is not an innate part of my identity.  I am ready to claim my rightful place as a strong woman.  I feel deserving of 30.  I feel like I am accomplishing what I am meant to.  I feel like I am becoming the woman I came here to become.  And it doesn’t feel coincidental that I’m 29 for just a few more months.  

I think it’s ok that I’ve fallen apart the way that I have up till now.  My remorse (and my tears) were genuine and the thinking was that my mistakes were so much more colossal than anyone else's.  But I now see the inaccuracy in this.  I’ve used tears as a means of protecting myself all this time.  As a means of showing my remorse so no one doubts it.  Being in trouble or having people mad at me is my worst fear.  And I think I’m ready to move past this.  

I think it’s possible and necessary that we begin to acknowledge and accept our own individual wisdoms; and stop waiting for some fictitious, Adult or God figure to pat us on the heads and tuck us into bed at night.

I really thought I needed to be saved, but I’m seeing how much better it is to become my own guardian, to become my own main source of compassion and acceptance, and what that in turn does for the world around me.   Like I said: I am earning 30.

Photo by Pam Stewart