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\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0My son turned five this year. For at least six months leading up to his birthday he was counting down. Many of his sentences started with, \u201cWhen I\u2019m five\u2026\u201d Five was going to be magical. He was going to be able to run \u201csuper\u201d fast, he was going to stay dry through the night, and <\/em>he was going to eat zucchini. (Still waiting on that last one). What is it about turning five? He had never shown much interest in any of his previous birthdays. My only guess is that it was the hot topic of the playground at school. I received daily updates on who turned five and who was already five.<\/p>\nBut then a funny thing happened as his birthday began to approach. He didn\u2019t want to be five anymore. He didn\u2019t even want to be four or three. \u201cI want to be a baby, mommy,\u201d he said. \u201cYou want to wear a diaper?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou want to drink milk?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou want to not be able to walk and talk and just go \u2018Wa-wa-wa\u2019 all the time?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYES!\u201d<\/p>\n
Dude was serious. I had to break it to him: there was no turning back. Five was coming whether he wanted it to or not. What if five wasn\u2019t as magical as he thought it would be? What if he couldn\u2019t run any faster than when he was four? What if he still had to wear a pull-up at night? What if every night for the rest of his life he\u2019d have to face a mountain of zucchini on his plate? What once seemed challenging but exciting now became terrifying.<\/p>\n
I can relate. I\u2019m turning thirty-five this year and I\u2019m not counting down the days with excitement. Something about turning thirty-five gives me a slight case of the blues. Technically I\u2019ve been an adult for more than a decade. I started working at eighteen. Moved into my first apartment at nineteen. Married at twenty-three. But thirty-five is like a point of no return to real, true, capital A Adulthood. And I\u2019m not ready for it.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s silly, I know, but somewhere along the way I picked up this idea that I was supposed to be an accomplished, confident woman at the top height of my career by the time I turned thirty-five. I mean there\u2019s nothing like a \u201cThirty Under 30\u201d headline to make an over-thirty woman reach for the chocolate and the tissues. The anxieties of \u2018what am I going to do with my life?\u2019 mutate to \u2018what have I done with my life?\u2019 as if it\u2019s already finished.<\/p>\n
I am happy to say that my son and I are over our growing pains. Five is working out just fine for him. He\u2019s in kindergarten, he has a more active social life than me, and not only is he super fast but the coolest too, according to him. Me? I\u2019m alright. Which means most of the time I\u2019m an anxious mess with a long list of goals and dreams that runs like a scroll. When I need to calm the storm in my head I say this: \u201c24 hours.\u201d It seems sometimes like my 24 hours are more like 4. In that time I may only find one hour for myself but there is no shortage of ideas, just the struggle to narrow it down to one, workable idea at a time.<\/p>\n
As I approach this mountain I see it\u2019s not so intimidating after all. My life is not a resume or a list of achievements. It\u2019s not about what everyone else is doing or seems to be doing. I imagine if I live to be an old woman I\u2019ll look back at these mountains and realize they were just hills. What is thirty-five when you live to see eighty or ninety? What is five when you live to see thirty-five? I\u2019ll tuck this away for when I reach the \u201cbig 4-0\u201d and see if I can remember what all the anxiety and fear of thirty-five was about.<\/p>\n
\u00a0Ambata Kazi-Nance<\/p>\n