Lately, when people ask me how I’m doing, my response is either trying to catch up or trying to slow down – either way, it means the same thing. I recognize a misalignment between the pace of the universe and that within my self. The earth has been spinning steadily for billions of years. Even more billions of life forms have ascended and descended back into the soil, most thriving perfectly without a sense of time or scale – yet somehow I’ve spent the majority of my existence convinced that I’m supposed to cram more, faster, bigger into my life than the rest. You’re meant for so much more, I told myself throughout my 20’s, as if life itself wasn’t already enough, beyond, overwhelming.
But how limited my notion of more has been – achieving certain incomes, performing in certain venues, being validated by certain institutions, associating with certain individuals, proving it on certain platforms. How liberating it is, then, to turn 36 today with the recognition that it’s all just molecules, pixels, or even less.
A few weeks ago my white blood cell count came in low. I spent a few days scared and saddened shitless. “It turns out it’s just stress,” the doctor told me on my follow-up appointment. “Try not to stress about it.” Just stress struck as an odd and paradoxical phrase. It made me think of all the things in my life that would benefit if I shrugged them off the same, placed the word just in front of them instead of acting like they were the cores of all gravitational pull. My body is literally, on a cellular level, struggling to catch up with my life, my ambition for that limited and minuscule more.
If life is a roller coaster, then being 36 is like being at the very top – having gone uphill for that tense first half of the ride with all the cranks wound up. You grip the handle until your knuckles are white and brace yourself for the descent, hoping the camera doesn’t catch you freaking the fuck out. But fortunately, life isn’t a roller coaster. The world doesn’t spin faster or slower for anyone. The universe is very anti-climactic. I aspire to live accordingly.