I've been thinking a lot about age lately, probably due to the unfortunate approach of my birthday. I think a large part of mulling this over so much is not about my actual age, but rather who and how I thought I'd be by the time I was this age. I had expectations, and those haven't exactly panned out. That's not actually a bad thing, as other good things have happened that I never could have predicted, but either way, I've been thinking it over a lot. And two recent observations have prompted further consideration:
1. I've been watching a lot of 30 Rock, as I am wont to do, and Liz's most recent lady problem is about her "Future Husband" for whom she has an entry in her phone contacts after oral surgery. Turns out his name is Wesley Snipes, a British fellow, and they hate each other. But no matter how much they try to escape this non-relationship, they keep meeting in unusual ways. Wesley decides that it's the universe's way of telling them to settle on each other. Liz ultimately decides not to settle, to continue being alone with faith in the idea that the right guy is out there. It's a kind of silly triumph, but also kind of sad that yet again love and Liz Lemon haven't ended up together. It made me wonder if we'd think Liz Lemon was half so funny if Tina Fey were single in real life. You see, we can believe in Liz Lemon's future love because her real life alter ego has found it already. If Tina Fey were single, childless, would we find 30 Rock funny, or just sad?
2. We had a work function today where all the graduate students participating in our study come to a pizza party and take a lot of assessments, fill out some surveys, etc. In the room, we have 5 large round tables for them to sit at, and as people wander in, they sort themselves out, like high school students in a lunchroom. There was a table of Indian students, a table of Chinese students, one of math guys and engineers, and one of biology white kids. In the center of the room, there was a table of students mixed beyond field and ethnicity, and they were... all the older graduate students. There was an "old kids" table. And I thought about going back to graduate school and how by the time it happens, I'll be one of the people at the old kids table. That's not necessarily a bad thing. Grad school for those students seems to be more personal. They have more job experience, more life experience.
It was the old kids table that made me realize that so much of my age anxiety is about expectation. I didn't expect to be at the old kids table. I didn't expect to go to grad school later rather than earlier. I expected to be married by now, with a kid or two (just like we expect Liz Lemon to be). There's nothing wrong with my life, except that it flies in the face of what I thought my life would be, and in some senses, what society thinks my life should be. I suppose the lesson of all this is to ignore those "shoulds" and focus on what is good and what I'd like to be different. Stop thinking about this hypothetical life that probably no one has anyway. I think it's one of those things that is easier said than done.
The relevant bit of 30 Rock is here, but I have no idea how they linked to just that segment. I'm not that interweb savvy, so you'll just have to go to Jezebel to watch it. You should be reading Jezebel anyway.
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