“For age is opportunity no less than youth itself, though in another dress.”
——Morituri Salutamus, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
I used to measure my life against a clock that didn’t actually belong to me — milestones I’d absorbed from somewhere, deadlines for things that don’t really have deadlines. Thirty felt like a verdict instead of a number.
What I’m slowly learning is that the years aren’t subtracting anything. They’re just handing me a different set of tools than the ones I had at twenty-five — quieter, sturdier, less interested in proving things.
Getting older isn’t losing your options. It’s trading the loud ones for better ones.
We learn early that being liked often comes from being easy to handle. Over time, that turns into a habit of self-editing — even in relationships that never actually asked for it.