IN THE THICK OF IT
This will be a short and sweet Weekly Post-Ed. I’m in the middle of writing the final portion of my thesis and the deadline is next week Wednesday (!!). I’ll have much to comment on this thesis after the deadline passes, but one lesson has been painfully learned from embarking on this final project: In doing difficult things, all the parts about oneself that have remained easily hidden or ignored comes into the light.
And it ain’t pretty.
There’s a laundry list of characteristics for what I mean by this, but my God—I overestimated the effectiveness of all the organizational skills and personal talent that makes up for much of my work ethic. Grinding through this thesis has been an uncomfortable confrontation with many of my creative shortcomings. It’s been a cathartic and fulfilling experience–don’t get my wrong–but the ouch of this realization hasn’t worn off yet. I’ll be in the middle of it until the deadline next week, but one thing is clear going forward: My creative process could use a tune up.
I’ll be more specific in the coming weeks about my experiences. It’s an uplifting kind of thing, not to worry. Until then, send help in the guise of your comments–they help a lot.
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ROBERT HYMA CASSEROLE
It’s not very often that a Weekly Post-Ed falls on one’s birthday, which is what today is.
Happy 35th birthday to me
*Holds for stadium applause*
Every year, it seems, I reflect on my life and what it feels like to be yet another year older. There isn’t a significant difference year to year, but sometimes reflecting on age comes up in unexpected places. In class a few weeks ago, the topic of my age came up and I told the truth. I’ve found that if the topic of my age comes up in college, I’m naturally asked as a followup, “What does it feel like to be in your 30s?”
It’s a silly question once you get into your 30s. What does it feel like? Being one’s thirties.
It’s like asking a tree, “What is it like to be a tree?”
And the tree responds, “Like tree. It feels like tree.”
Once you get there, you know. But it’s also disappointing to get older. There’s often no identifiable ribbon of achievement other than the dirge of wrinkles and slightly less elastic skin. Being in one’s thirties feels the same as one’s twenties–only, the number is printed higher than one feels. I feel just as mentally competent and sharp as I did in my twenties, with a sense of identity that hasn’t shifted all that much. The only difference has been a slew of new life experiences to add to the catalogue of what it means to be Robert Hyma.
I suppose that’s the difference: Experiences.
Really, age isn’t something trackable other than a number. What often changes is experiences, which is something added to the dish being prepared.
The best I can describe it, experience feels like something. I, Robert Hyma, don’t feel any different than I did a decade ago (as I’ve said), but there is a difference–one that I can feel. It’s like eating your favorite dish but someone added extra salt to it. Depending how you felt about the dish, maybe the extra salt helps. Or, maybe it makes the dish too bitter now. But there’s nothing to be done about it now: Someone added the salt (experiences) and that’s what the dish tastes like now.
Optimistically, it’s an amount of salt that doesn’t make or break the dish. It’s extra and can be ignored if you like, but you know it’s there if one is really straining to taste the extra pinch of salt.
Experience, then, is just an added neutral ingredient to age. I’m still me at 35—a dish called Robert Hyma Casserole (for better or worse)—but I’m also a bit of something else I can’t quite describe, lest I ask the cook what else was put into the main course this time around.
And on this particular iteration of Robert Hyma Casserole (my birthday, I mean, if I’m being too abstract), I’d rather not know if what I’m tasting is an extra pinch of salt. Right now, I like the dish.
It tastes just right. I wouldn’t change a thing.
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ANY BIRTHDAY WISHES?
The most “old person” behavior in my adult life (that’s convenient enough for me to list, of course) is that I complain about my birthday like a crotchety geriatric that says, “I don’t want anything for my birthday!”
It’s true: I’ve reached a sum total of life pleasantries that I don’t need pine for anything more (outside of snap-decision items I purchase on a whim like fresh socks or elastic shoe strings–I’m not a monster, after all). And I realize my privilege by being in this position: There are many who don’t have the luxury of shrugging when family and friends ask what they can do for your birthday. Outside of some birthday gathering (in which I still assume the role of crotchety geriatric:
How long is party supposed to last?!”), I truly want nothing.
A birthday with nothing isn’t grounds for a pity party–it’s a celebration of just being. For once.
Which is what I really want for my birthday this year.
“To feel like tree,” a tree might say.
That’s what I want for me. And for you.
“Tree” as much as you need to “tree” today.
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Wishing everyone as well as you can be. You’re not alone out there,
