"Cause I’m just about to set fire to everything I see"
May 19, 2010 § 1 Comment
Apparently, 25 is when it all clicks. 25 is when you start getting serious about getting serious. 25 is when the mother of all ice-breakers, “what school did/do you go to?” gets replaced by “where do you work?” 25 is when you start seeing the people you date as a potential spouse(s) (or in some cases, 25 is when you start considering if you want a spouse(s) at all). 25 is when you realize you can no longer eat four, palm-sized sugar cookies with frosting for breakfast without feeling really lousy later. 25 is when you don’t know whether to be offended or flattered when the waiter doesn’t ask you for your ID when you order pinot noir at dinner. 25 is when you start investing more (interpret that however you may), when you really start to understand quality over quantity in every aspect of your life, from furniture to friendships.
There’s an unmistakable sense of maturity and change that you notice in yourself as you hit your mid-twenties. They are subtle and hardly noticeable at first, but when you take a step back to evaluate yourself as a whole, you realize the sudden impact of it all. For a select few, these changes can happen earlier, but for the bulk of my friends and for me, it happened in the last year. Suddenly, it seemed, we weren’t kids anymore. We were no longer recent college graduates. For most of us, a few summers had passed since we could claim that title. We found our schedules a little fuller, a little less flexible. But it’s not the addition of a salaried job or the business-casual wardrobe I’m speaking of.
And I don’t know, maybe it’s because the mid-twenties seems a lot closer to thirty than it is to twenty. Maybe there really is a biological clock inside of us, alarms set on the points in our lives where significant change and growth is supposed to happen. Or maybe, you just get sick of acting like an idiot, outgrowing the days when being careless had consequences that didn’t seem so severe. Whatever it is, you start to understand yourself a little more, even when all you understand is that it only gets more confusing.
At 25, I can tell you all this was true for me. Everything came together. And everything fell apart.
At 25, I decided that a career and life plan twenty years in the making was no longer appropriate, as the passion I once felt for it had dissipated. But even with such a jarring decision, a decision that was the most difficult thing I’ve ever had to come to terms with, I have never felt surer that I am doing the right thing.
I’m ashamed to say that I can be quite the ageist. I have always thought there was an age limit to certain things, and outside that range, it would no longer be acceptable or appropriate. And no, I’m not just talking about grandmothers in tube tops and hot pants (no? is that just Florida then?). Whenever I heard people say, “you’re never too old for…” I just pretentiously deemed them as people who couldn’t come to terms that a dream was over, or that a goal was just too unrealistic and out of reach. But when my own plans were delayed, I saw my previous mindset as being a little too skewed, and a little too naïve. Life, as we all can attest to, rarely ever goes according to schedule. We can make a basic itinerary and try to follow it as devoutly as we can, but more often than not, we find ourselves compromising, altering, and adjusting with each reroute we come across.
But 25 doesn’t have to mean anything more than what it is, a number; a product of some math problems, the minimum requirement to rent a car without incurring a ridiculous additional fee, the number of minutes on a treadmill you will negotiate as being sufficient enough to counterbalance the half a pizza you ate the night before.
In a lot of ways, we’re better prepared to take riskier chances at this age than we might have been five years ago. We’re a little more wiser and not as reckless, but not old enough to have become too jaded or discouraged. Even if we’re diving into something unfamiliar, we’re still guided by the experiences we’ve already recorded. We’ve become smarter about what we hold on to, and what can let go. We’re still molding. And we’re not ready to let go of all the ideals that brought us to where we are.
I think the biggest thing you understand at this age is that the life you have is truly yours to own. That no matter the obligations, the pressures, the expectations placed on you (by others and/or yourself), you are ultimately responsible for the choices you make because you have made them. You hit a certain point where you accept that there are no other bodies you can blame because you are indeed, accountable for your happiness.
25 doesn’t have to be the age where all your shit comes together. Neither does 26. Or 36. Risk something. Risk everything. You never stop figuring out who you are. So take your chances in San Francisco. Or Waco. Or NYC. Or a shack in West India. Do it while you have room for mistakes. Do it while your ass hasn’t started sagging. Time will be less and less forgiving as you get older, and that’s just the nature of life. And while there’s no age cap for self-discovery, it will get harder to take that step.
Life refuses to slow down for any of us, so do what you can when you can. And maybe that means moving to a different city in a different state. Or a different country on a different continent. Maybe it means switching jobs or switching industries. Maybe it means throwing out that lifelong game plan, to try out for something new. I don’t know. But at the end of your life, don’t you want to be able to have stories to tell? Stories of absolute catastrophes of decision making as well life-altering ones? Don’t you want to be able to say, “yeah, I did that once, I got a tattoo of a pirate ship on my ass in Cairo” (enter ‘arrrgh, booty’ joke here) or “I met your mother at an all-you-can-eat Shepherd’s pie festival in Kansas City”? Don’t you want to be able to reflect back and recount the days you were scared shitless but happy more than the days you were safe but miserable? Don’t you want to say that you lived life the best way you knew how?
All things are ready, if our minds be so – Henry V
"Everything I’m not made me everything I am"
May 14, 2010 § 1 Comment
On any given day, I will have no less than three bandages wrapped around my fingers. There are multitudes of desperately squeezed Neosporin tubes in the medicine cabinet and kitchen countertops. I have kitchen battle wounds on places that you typically shouldn’t see scars (forearm, elbows, shins, and bellybutton). I add too much garlic to everything, and my sauces are always a little too runny or far too dry. At 25, the only thing I can eyeball measure is the soy milk-to-cereal ratio, and that’s if I’m not distracted by something shiny.
I have often wondered if my mother feels disappointment in that her first born daughter (although she claims to have found me under a bridge) has failed so miserably in resembling or retaining any of her domestic prowesses. She has memorized and perfected long-standing recipes since she was half my age, while the only thing I am able to do with them is to shove them ferociously in my mouth as soon as they are prepared. My chopped vegetables are terribly sloppy and unevenly cut, but she slices and dices with the utmost precision with a speed that makes me wide-eyed with amazement.
And while I am inclined to eat burned macaroni and cheese straight from the pot, usually hovering over the sink, she has never found it taxing to set the table. Her presentation has always been impeccable, even after all these years, even when it’s just us neanderthals she’s serving; she always takes time to wipe off sauces that may have trickled onto the plate, and arranges the food in the most appetizing, Martha Stewart-perfect ways. And she does all of this automatically, without thought or concern that she’s doing it at all.
It would be easy to dismiss my Omma as just another traditional housewife, someone who cooks and cleans and makes sure my dad’s cholesterol is at acceptable levels. But in truth, it is she who keeps this family in checks and balances. It is she who fixes the broken dishwasher or lawn mower when my dad has given up in frustration. It is she who buys Honie and me pretty (but ultimately unnecessary) things that all girls love, but dads would find indulgent and fruitless. She is also the one who keeps my dad from making too many rash, impulsive decisions that will likely bite him in the ass later. Even with a family as close knit as ours, she’s the one each of us go to first to act as a buffer and confidant when we’re wary of how the others will respond to a particular piece of news. She’s the voice of reason, the greatest negotiator and problem solver of the most impossible of situations. She is the one who keeps us nourished in equal amounts of banchan and unconditional love.
Although I could never imagine taking the route she’s chosen, she has told me on many occasions that she is completely satisfied with the life she’s has lived, as a mother, wife, and a homemaker goddess. I tell her, with a hint judgment in my tone that I could never follow in her footsteps, that it would never be sufficient for me. But she takes no offense in my obvious arrogance. She’s not ashamed of the life she’s chosen – this is what she wanted, and for her, it’s proven to be enough. She’s had other aspirations and goals at several points in her life, but her role, her identity as homemaker always takes precedence, and she holds no regrets or qualms about that.
Even with my utter lack of sophistication, grace, and common sense in the kitchen, she has never pushed her lifestyle onto Honie or me. She understands that I’ve always been lights years different from her – that the tomboyish qualities I developed at an early age was never just a phase, but an integral part of my personality and character. I have always leaned slightly more to the obnoxious side; Ki has repeatedly told me I burp like a man and I have yet to conquer the concept of taking small bites when eating. I think it’s hilarious to cover my eyes while driving, screaming, “My contacts! My contacts!” especially when my mom is in the passenger seat. My priorities and interests never included anything with a ladle, and I think she’s always been secretly proud of that fact. She will occasionally criticize my total incompetence when it comes to laundry (ohhhhh, so silk really should be dry-cleaned), but the pride I hear in her voice when she’s defending my domestic shortcomings to others is always obvious and clear.
I’d never outright admit any of this, but I really do try to model myself after her. We are more alike than either of will ever care to admit, and when I catch myself doing things that are so Omma-esque, I am simultaneously shocked and pleasantly surprised. When I bake, I weed out the mutant cookies and/or muffins before placing the non-deformed ones neatly on a plate for others (although I think my dad would eat my banana muffins no matter how much they resembled a cleft foot in appearance). Whenever I find myself doing anything remotely ladylike, I know that I have intrinsically inherited the skill from my mother. I have learned, with much trial and error, to listen to her advice, no matter how pesky and obsolete they may seem at first (always carry extra Band-Aids… and a sewing kit). My mother and I grew up in two entirely different times, settings, and continents. We were raised with vastly contrasting set of expectations, but the similarities I see between us extend deeper and farther than any long-standing tradition. The core of who I am is founded on how my mom (and dad) chose to raise me, despite the image she’s probably always had in her head when it came to a first daughter. Ki, Honie, and I are who we are because we grew up in a house filled with encouragement, never enforcement.
I will always be someone who burns the chicken and her fingers. I am more than likely to go and buy new underwear to avoid doing laundry. I will always think fart jokes are funny. But because of my Omma, I will also never pick my teeth at the table. I will never be intentionally cruel towards anyone, even my enemies. I will always spoil Ki and Honie with things they could just as easily get for themselves. I will always feel love and supported, without limitations or expectations to meet. And for that, if I can become just a quarter of the woman my Omma is, I will consider myself to have done something right in this life.
soopastryheart 
