Hello, 49.
You know, by now I thought I’d have a lot more of life figured out. Maybe not everything, but definitely more than I have managed.
I realized that for the first time, I am only starting to learn who I am.
For example:
I learned this year that I really hate brushing my teeth. (Self-discovery at its finest).
And before we get too far, I have to clarify that I do still brush my teeth. Because you know, it’s required and all. I just realized how much I hate doing it.
I hate standing at the sink, where my bare feet dance between the soft bathmat and hardwood floor. Where my toes disappear into the toekick, cabinetry designed to save your toes while also becoming a makeshift home to tiny spiders.
I hate looking into the sink. I hate the feeling of toothpaste in my mouth. I hate when the water drips down my wrist after rinsing my toothbrush, and I hate that one drip will always fall down the side of the cup when I put my toothbrush away.
I also hate that my Oura ring figured this all out before I did. It took me a few weeks of seeing increased stress levels in my morning routine to realize how much I hated brushing my teeth.
Old me would have convinced myself that this should not be a thing. Who hates oral hygiene? Get over yourself.
But this year, instead of trying to convince myself that something shouldn’t bother me, I started to wonder what would make me hate it less. And it turns out that for me, if I position my bathmat at an angle so both feet can stay firmly planted near the sink but not where my toes disappear, and if I look at the ceiling instead of the water while I brush… it got a little easier.
That’s it. Who knew.
I mean, deep inside - I knew. But it took my 48 years to allow myself to do something completely normal in a little less normal way.
Weirdly, this tiny discovery feels like a pretty good summary of this last trip around the sun. I have spent most of my life trying to figure out how to be normal, and I finally decided I should really be doing what works for me.
So I’ve been experimenting.
It turns out:
It’s ok to turn your dining room into an art den.
It’s ok to eat Pop-Tarts for dinner.
It’s ok to go to bed at 7.
It’s ok to take the longer path down the pavement to avoid walking in grass.
It’s ok to pile your ice cream with half the jar of maraschino cherries.
Especially the cherries. I love maraschino cherries.
When I was a teenager hanging out with my friends at Denny’s at 2 in the morning, I would convince the waitress to let me pay for a whole bowl of maraschino cherries. But then somewhere along the way, I stopped asking for what I wanted. I stopped piling my ice cream with cherries.
Instead, I would take maybe 5.
Five seemed appropriate.
Five didn’t raise questions.
Five said, I enjoy maraschino cherries a normal amount, thank you very much.
Ten cherries - that seemed excessive. It felt greedy.
Which is incredibly ridiculous when you think about it. I’m in my own kitchen, with cherries I paid for … and nobody was counting.
But still, somewhere inside me was this tiny little regulator whose entire job was apparently to make sure I never enjoyed anything too much.
Five cherries. Not ten.
The more I thought about the cherries, the more I realized how many I’ve left in the jar.
And how many times I’ve made myself quieter because maybe I was too excited.
And how many things I pretended not to care about because maybe it was too embarrassing.
How many times I’ve tolerated being uncomfortable because everyone else seemed fine.
How many preferences I’ve treated like problems to solve.
How many things I’ve wanted, but didn’t allow myself to have.
Take five.
Five = reasonable.
Five doesn’t require an explanation.
Five doesn’t make you too much.
Sixteen-year-old me asked for the bowl of cherries.
She certainly wasn’t concerned with being appropriate.
And this is one of the stranger parts of getting older. You think you are going to become more certain of yourself. More confident. More you. Instead, I find myself looking backward and wondering - what other parts of me did I accidentally leave behind while I was trying to learn how to be acceptable?
So here’s to discovering me. All the new parts of myself.
I’m making art again.
I’m writing my book again.
I turned a room that was “supposed” to be a dining room into a place where I can paint, and make a mess, and sit on the couch with my dogs.
I’m paying attention to the things that make me uncomfortable, and instead of telling myself they shouldn’t be - I’m noticing what could be different. What I would actually like. What I would actually want. What feels like a warm bathmat and not a cold wood floor.
A bathmat. How incredibly basic.
In my 49th year, I promise my sixteen-year-old self to stop confusing discomfort with character-building. I’ll stop confusing preference with selfishness.
In my 49th year, I promise to use “because I want to”.
I’ll keep my feet on the bathmat.
I’ll walk on the pavement.
I’ll eat Pop-Tarts for dinner.
And when I open the jar of maraschino cherries, you can be sure I’m taking ten.