29 things I learned being 29
disclaimer: this isn't advice nor wisdom, please don't sue me
Not every choice needs to be framed as feminism.
A lot of left-leaning women, myself often included, feel the need to justify certain choices as “feminist.” It’s the result of choice feminism being even further diluted by moralizing online spaces and virtue signaling. Not all decisions are created equally. The “right” decision for you might not be the most liberatory one. As long as you’re not hurting anyone, just do whatever you want! There’s no revolutionary way to get Botox, and that’s okay!
Other people have been in love the way you’re in love.
Being in love is incredible because on some level you’re like, “surely no one has felt this before, I am experiencing a novel human emotion,” because it is such a staggeringly vast feeling (or state of being, or life-altering event, or whatever descriptor you’d prefer). But other people have felt this before. Your love isn’t new, but it is beautiful all the same.
And while love is beautiful, it is also horrifying.
This is a profoundly unoriginal thought, and many have said it more eloquently. But, it is incredible that we voluntarily hand another person the exact tools capable of devastating us and just hope that they don’t? Kind of insane behavior.
Sometimes, on occasion, under the right conditions, a sporting event can be fun.
But probably not men’s sports.
You cannot be behind in your own life.
Not everyone’s lives unfurl the same way, not all of us move at the same pace, and there isn’t a standard “right” time to do something.
I need to turn back to art.
I need to learn to trust my own feelings.
Eventually, you have to decide what you can and cannot accept from your parents.
Even if they are profoundly loving, supportive, and did their best. It’s their first time being alive, but it’s your first time too. At some point, we have to decide what boundaries will make the relationship sustainable.
The stories we tell about ourselves aren’t set in stone.
As a stubborn Taurus who hates change, I have been sometimes resistant to the idea of the vision of myself I have in my head shifting. It’s a lesson I have learned over and over, but I am constantly surprised at the things I used to say that I’d never do, that I now happily do. Being open to evolution is not the same thing as not knowing who you are.
Stop making decisions based on your ideal self.
You can make decisions that challenge you or move you in the right direction, but choosing based on an entirely different version of yourself just sets you up to fail. For example, I have accepted that I have a limited tolerance for leftovers, and a deep-seated fear of eating spoiled food (thank you to the Chicken Incident of 2015), so I’ve stopped trying to be a meal prepper and just cook more often. I waste less food, and I’m happier with my meals.
You need to be bored more often.
When I was a kid, I remember being bored a lot. In class, on a Sunday afternoon, when there was nothing to do, the dog days of summer, when I wasn’t at camp. I think boredom is important for two reasons. 1) I think it’s good for our brains not to be constantly stimulated, and 2) being bored encourages you to think more deeply than you would otherwise. In a world where the phone in our pocket means that we can be entertained every single waking minute, boredom is a choice that we have to make. We (myself included) need to put down the TikTok.
Feelings being valid does not always necessitate a change in someone’s actions.
Something I’ve been working on is expressing my feelings (yay, emotional vulnerability!), and one of the lessons that goes along with that is that someone can hurt your feelings, and your resulting emotions are valid, but that doesn’t mean they have to change their behavior. As an example, I am also discovering that I am kind of a jealous person (ew, I know). My partner has never done anything to make me jealous. This is just me making up conspiracy theories in my head. My emotions are valid in that they are real. But they’re not about my partner, they’re about my own insecurities, so my feeling jealous doesn’t mean my partner has to change their behavior in any way. I just have to get my shit together.
You have to give your parents a chance to get to know you.
If you grew up with strict immigrant parents, as I did, you probably got very used to hiding parts of who you are from them. But now that I am an adult and can’t “get in trouble” anymore, if I want my parents to really know who I am, I have to let them in.
Please don’t date anyone who doesn’t make your life easier or better.
Some heterosexual women are really in the trenches regarding this. And for the record, this isn’t a subtweet.
I like celebrating other people’s birthdays more than my own.
Last night, I was reflecting on all of my past birthdays. I don’t know when the switch flipped, or maybe I did feel this as a kid, and I just have forgotten, but I hate my birthday. I do love any opportunity to indulge myself, because if I am anything, I am a hedonist. But birthdays always have so much pressure around them to have the best time ever. It feels like no matter what I do, I always feel a little disappointed. I think I’m also learning that, despite being a bit of a hosting control freak and hating surprises, I hate planning my own birthday. I always have a blast at other people’s birthdays, though. It’s all of the celebration and cake, just none of the stress.
Working with yeast is not as scary as I thought it was.
This isn’t exactly a complicated skill, but I can make focaccia! And cinnamon rolls! God, I love bread.
Not every friendship needs to be a deep and profound connection.
A lot of my friendships have begun in formative experiences or serial oversharing. I sometimes struggle with keeping people at a distance. But not every single friendship is going to have that depth, and it doesn’t mean it’s a bad friendship or not worth your time.
I am just like other girls.
It’s not that I thought I wasn’t like other girls in a “pick me” kind of way, but in a “I was always a weird girl” kind of way. Like my friends in elementary school were playing pretend at recess, and Naruto running down the hallways kind of way. Even though parts of me will always be weird, I am more like my sisters than I thought.
Part of getting older is just giving yourself permission to do what you really want.
I need to stop rushing.
For most things, there is no reward for speed. I’m allowed to slow down, to take my time with things.
Constantly pursuing self-optimization is a sure path to unhappiness.
If you are chronically online like me, you are constantly bombarded by ways to be better. Here’s how to wellness stack, how to be a clean girl, how to glow up, etc, etc. Just because you could be doing more, doesn’t mean you aren’t doing enough.
And on a related note, focus on who you want to be, not what you want to have.
Stop buying things to look like the person you want to become and just focus on actually BECOMING that person instead.
Being the “rebellious” child pays dividends.
I was the rebellious child growing up, and for the record, I mean rebellious in an Indian family, not a white family. I just didn’t want to listen to my parents and “talked back” (though at the ripe age of almost-30, I am unsure how talking back is different from having a conversation). There were many downsides to being the rebellious kid, but there is a deeply underrated upside. Because I set the tone early of constantly defying expectations and doing what I wanted, my parents never made any assumptions about who I was going to be. By flouting the rules, I was able to free myself from the desi chains of cultural obligation and was free to set the course of my own life with very little pushback from my parents. If any minors are reading this (if so, who is supervising your internet access???) I highly recommend breaking the mold early on.
Silliness is vulnerability.
Silliness is intimacy, it’s trust, it’s seeing someone in their most unguarded and unpolished state, and laughing with them anyway.
Being in a relationship isn’t an antidote for mental illness.
I (naively) used to think that being in love would fix everything that was wrong with me. How could I be sad when I was in love!!! Well, turns out the two are not mutually exclusive. Of course, my life is so much better for that love, and it means that my emotional support system is stronger for it. But it didn’t magically solve my insecurities, my anxieties, my depression, or my ADHD. What it did do was make coping with those much easier, but there’s still a lot of work I have to do on my own.
I am so happy that I’ve built a life that decenters men. And no, it’s not the same thing as hating men.
Decentering men means removing the need for male validation, approval, and attention from the center of your life, and instead focusing on yourself and solidarity with other women. It is a radical rejection of the societal conditioning that teaches us that our worth is contingent on being “chosen” by a man. It doesn’t mean hating men or even unnecessarily demonizing them. In fact, I think there’s an argument to be made that it asks more of men than the social roles society expects of them. There are men who I think are wonderful people and care about. But at the same time, I am grateful that I have been able to create a life for myself where my happiness isn’t contingent on a man.
I am so angry and heartbroken basically every day, but I’m very lucky to do the work that I do.
For those of you reading this who may not know, I work for a reproductive justice organization. And specifically, a good chunk of my work is centered on immigrant access to healthcare, which is almost a laughably depressing policy area to be in right now. I am pissed off every single day, but I am also incredibly grateful to have the chance to feel like I’m actually doing something.
Being the friend that is “too woke” sometimes really sucks.
I still haven’t found the balance between giving a friend grace and also not compromising on my values. Call me an SJW, but sometimes it really is that serious. I think I may be more sensitive than I would be otherwise because of the work I do, but I also believe that everything is political. Denying that is at best ignorance and at worst, violence.
I have to keep writing.
I don’t want to forget how.