The myth of age

I used to believe that by 25, I’d find my true love, get married, and live in some version of eternal happiness. Or at the very least, by 30, I’d be in love, finally arriving at the destination where everything made sense.

That idea took hold when I was 21 or 22. I believed that a good boyfriend, a devoted partner, could validate my existence in the world. Back then, I secretly looked down on the people who settled right after college. Classmates who married young, had kids, and now post pictures of family outings, Halloween costumes, and matching pajamas. Their posts radiate with that soft-focus glow of domestic life. They call it an happy ending. They call it enough.

I would stare on those images longer than I meant to, thinking: it’s over for you. Your story has narrowed. You don’t get to run anymore, or start over. You’ve been claimed.

And I felt superior for not being there. I told my friends I wanted to travel the world, learn everything and nothing, stay untethered for as long as I could. I said I wouldn’t even consider having a child before 40.

But now, as I grow older, I feel myself being pulled away from the youth of twenties and drawn into the stillness of thirties. 

That’s myths of age, isn’t it?

Around 25, we believe we can do whatever we want. We’re protected by the excuse of youth. Our mistakes are forgivable. Our uncertainty is expected. We act with a kind of freedom that says: Why not? I’m still young. There’s silliness in us, but it’s charming, even enviable.

But there’s also a silent restraint. We aren’t fully respected yet. We’re told we’re too young to know better and yet somehow still expected to know more. And when we hurt someone, people shrug it off—they’re young, they say, as if inexperience makes it easier to disappoint others.

Then 30 arrives. No announcement, no rite of passage—just the slow, invisible pressure of expectations settling on your back. You feel it even if no one says anything. Like a guillotine that cuts away the version of you that was allowed to be messy and forgivable. The thirties come with the idea that you should be building something steady. You’re supposed to have a career that makes sense, a life partner maybe, children possibly. You’re not young enough to be carefree, but not old enough to be wise. You exist in a strange middle—expected to be finished but still unfinished.

As my coworker once said, society makes it look like people have everything figured out by their thirties or forties. But she’s in her fifties, and she told me she still feels like she’s learning. Still unsure of so many things. 

So I wonder:

Does age really define what we’re ready for?

Does turning 30 or 35 make us more capable of love, or just more resigned to not having it?

If we haven’t found it by 25, what are we supposed to do at 35? 

Cry into our pillows, put cover on our face and wait for next decade to arrive, without a plot?

What does it mean to reach 40, 50, or 60 and still carry the same questions we held at 22?

Will clarity actually come with time, or is that just something we’re told so we don’t panic too early?

Will we ever be emotionally ready to offer the kind of love that lasts—not just fireworks, but real commitment?

Or is all of this just projection? A story sold to us by Hollywood, polished by culture, and reinforced by a system that thrives when people follow the same script.

Sometimes I wish I could live forever, but not just biologically. I wish I could freeze my legal age at 27. Just out of 25. Not yet at 30. The best kind of middle. Old enough to stop making careless mistakes, young enough not to be boxed into predictability like some piano collecting dust in a living room. Even then, I’d still have to face the reality that everyone around me would keep aging, keep moving further into their settled lives. Even if I could stay 27 forever, they wouldn’t. They’d fade into the dust of predictability, one by one.

The strange part is, I already feel like that’s happening. I’m not immortal, but I feel like I’ve outlived a certain kind of life. I remember when I could sit in a room with seven friends until four in the morning, drinking, laughing, talking about silly things and gossiping about crushes. 

Now, those same friends only show up on my Instagram posts filled with smiling kids, matching outfits, family captions about blessings and balance.

What a tragic outcome.

And yet, somehow, it’s the most normal thing in the world.

—

As I grow older, time begins to blur. A week starts to feel like a day, a day collapses into a second. Life moves quickly now, even though so much of it is still wrapped in confusion, sadness, and a stack of unresolved emotions that never quite go away.

Every day, I look in the mirror and stare at the fine lines and eye bags no one else seems to notice. I wonder when I started worrying about aging. Maybe it was the moment I stopped believing that age brings maturity. Or maybe it was when I realized that even if it does, maturity doesn’t seem to matter in a world built on fast, disposable love.

In the end, it’s still about love, isn’t it? LMAO