Time and tide

Alternate titles: "airing my decade-old dirty laundry for ur entertainment" or, "getting older is a mind fk"

I didn’t get my first tattoo until just after my 25th birthday. At the time, there weren’t a ton of artists doing the type of painterly, watercolor style I liked, so I spent a while finding the right fit. And when I did? I was thee worst client.

I made her custom mix the shade of pink I wanted for the flowers. My low pain tolerance definitely showed when I was squirming on the table. And I wanted to split the tattoo up into two sessions, to test out the color ink and make sure I didn’t have an allergic reaction.¹

Spoiler: I am not allergic to tattoo ink

The second session came in the new year, one of the weirdest times of my life: I had just been fired from my waitressing job… via voicemail… right after I woke up hungover on New Year’s Day… after hooking up with a coworker… who added me on Facebook to tell me the condom broke.²

Needless to say, I was a little out of it at this appointment. And I don’t remember exactly how it came up, but of course it did, as the weirdest life stories often do during tattoo appointments.³ I distinctly remember staring up at the white ceiling while the perfect shade of pink ink entered my arm, telling my artist (who I am tempted to not even link to, because I am so retroactively mortified by all this⁴) how my last few weeks had gone.

Terrifically patient and way more cool than I was or will ever be, she laughed in a knowing way. "Ahhh, your 20s,” she said. “Everything gets better when you turn 30. You just stop giving a shit.”

“Wow,” I said, earnestly. “That sounds great.”

The freshly-finished tattoo on my 25 year old arm

For the next five years, that little fact stuck around in my head. I can’t wait to be 30, I thought. I can’t wait to care less.

So in 2018, it was with that energy that I entered a new decade. I was turning 30 and I was pumped!!!! I took a trip with five friends to Puerto Rico to celebrate and everything felt amazing. I had great skin and hair and friends! I ran multiple half marathons! My writing career was stable! I was single and happy to not be attached to the wrong person! After the clusterfuck that was my 20s, I was overjoyed for this new stage of life.

And oh boy, it’s true: Everything absolutely feels easier in your 30s. I am more patient, more level-headed, and more able to make no-brainer decisions that feel good to present-me and future-me. I can let go of nonsense. I truly do care less.

But ten years after that first tattoo appointment, turning 35 felt very different.

Here’s what a 10-year-old watercolor tattoo looks like. Proof that everyone takes bad healed photos of their own tattoos, even tattoo artists 🤓

I had never been one to fear a birthday, but man, 35 sounds… old. That’s like, almost 40, which is middle aged, right? By the time my mom turned 35, she had been married for a decade and I was a toddler. I’m engaged (one of the most socially-accepted forms of ~*maturity*~) and I don’t even want kids, but I still felt decidedly different than how I’d expect a 35 year old woman to feel.

Because honestly, aside from the skincare routine I stick to religiously and my growing lactose intolerance, I still feel 25. I laugh too loud at restaurants, I dance too hard at concerts, I wear princess-y dresses for basically every occasion. I even still feel everything all the time, even if I can let it go faster than I used to.

But most impactful of all, I’m mid-career change.

I’m no longer an expert in my field and my budget is stretched thin. I’m working as a personal assistant part-time while I build my skills, exactly like I did when I was 25, waitressing part-time while I grew my clothing line.⁵ Looking at life through that lens, it’s hard to feel like I’ve progressed.

I told my therapist that I wasn’t living up to “being 35,” whatever that means. “Well, what would it look like if you felt as excited to turn 35 as you were to turn 30?” she asked.

“I have no idea,” I replied. “35 isn’t exciting. It’s just old.”

“Maybe you could make some art about it. How is your life different from five years ago? What have you accomplished?”

I guess I have objectively accomplished a lot, like anyone would in five years of life. I met the man I’m going to marry just a couple months after my 30th birthday, and built a really beautiful relationship with him. I closed a business—my life’s work to that point—that I no longer wanted to invest in. So many of my friendships have grown even closer and stronger. I go to barre class almost every day, I cook healthy meals, I have a gorgeous apartment in a gorgeous neighborhood. I don’t feel the impulse to buy myself everything I want, even if I can afford it. I’ve even kept a lot of houseplants alive!

There are a lot of things I haven’t accomplished and things I’m not proud of, things I still want to be different. But I think we have this idea that your life builds on itself forever and ever, until you’ve reached some pinnacle of Humanity where you’re on the top and you know everything and do it all right. It’s like your own little personal piece of capitalism: Climbing the ladder from intern to executive until you’re the high-paid CEO of yourself, and then you die.

But that’s not really the point, is it? Or at least, it doesn’t have to be. You can always be a little bit of an intern, if you want. You can start parts of your life over at any age, too, and thank God for that. Wouldn’t it be boring to stop learning, stop growing, once you get “old enough”?

Anyway, that’s a long way of saying I painted a still life about turning 35, featuring representations of my favorite achievements, life trinkets, and lucky moments from the last five years. It’s called “time and tide,” like the oracle card in the background.

I love being 35.

What was blooming on the winter solstice

Nothing!

Just kidding, kinda. Here’s what I wrote in my journal while walking through the Brooklyn Botanic Garden on the solstice:

It feels like the garden is sleeping beneath the cold stone paths and dry fallen leaves.

Orange and red berries nipped by plump little birds, evergreen branches placed over sleeping bulb planters. Soil turned over for the spring. Moss on massive old tree branches like dry velvet.

It's noon but the bright sun is less than 45° from the horizon. It smells like clear cold air and dry leaves and the last of the lavender you can pinch between your fingers. But one thing I love about New York is how roses bloom until the solstice.

1. Funny that I don’t think any of this would bother me if one of my clients did it, but I still look back and feel mortified

2. You know that show “Girls” on HBO? This could have been a plotline for sure

3. Tattooists are like hairdressers but with even better gossip. Besides, I can never keep my mouth shut when something is hilarious, even when it makes me look terrible. Case in point, this whole post so far!

4. It was Joy Rumore, a lovely, talented, and kind tattooist who now works in LA

5. Luckily, I make a wayyyyy better PA than a waitress. Also I’m no longer an idiot