This clickbait esc title, while seemingly greedy, is something that I've said to multiple of my friends when talking about growing older. Coming from a traditional Italian family, as most of my hometown friends do, we've grown up going to the all too familiar big Italian funeral. Symbolizing peace for older generations yet confusion and trauma for those younger. Confusion specifically ran through my mind because none of these intensely depressing times felt as if they represented the person who we were there for. My mom has always said to me, when I die, don't spend money on a gravestone, go on a trip - which says exactly the type of person she is. Feelings of loss and dealing with them are SO personal - and who am I to judge what one does when someone passes? However, when the question gets asked to me of how I would like to be remembered, I say throw a party, which says a little bit about who I am. Less morbidly, before even considering the afterthought of myself, I tell people I want to live to two-hundred. As they laugh in response to my exaggerated and over-the-top optimism, to me, living to two-hundred is less about the state I will be in at that age, which is god knows what; I think of it as more of a figure of speech or state of mind.
Right now, I feel like I've already lived at least two different lives, entering my third era currently. Realistically, thinking about how much life I've already experienced and how much it has taught me at twenty, I can't help but wonder what my thought process, personality and relationship statuses will be like by the time I hit my 40th or, god willing, my 200th. As a twenty-year-old who has yet to fall in love and experience some of life's greatest gifts, I still don't even feel fully ready to experience those things in this era of my life. The hot rumour is that your thirties are your new twenties, which ponders my most recent question to myself: what's the rush?
If your thirties are your new twenties, I'm still in my early teens, right? - deciding who I am, what I like and what passions drive me to move forward? I've even developed this mindset where I WANT to be single. Which changes biweekly, as most of my friends know. However, if you had told me that I thought like this even for a week last year, I would have laughed in your face. Life right now, for everyone in their twenties, should just be about enjoying the now and enjoying the only real-time in your life where it's acceptable to be selfish. Selfish in the sense that you are worrying about YOUR next steps, not about your next steps along with your significant other, or god forbid, yourself, your significant other, along with however many little gremlins you'll have tagging along with you. You're never going to be this free in your life again.
Looking at the women in my life, I've known them only for the last two decades, yet as they get older, to me, they just get better. My Gam, acting and looking twenty years younger every time I see her, driving her silver and turquoise Kia Soul with fuzzy cheetah interior, is the epitome of not letting age define the standard of who you're supposed to be. I've never really experienced women who have resented aging, or maybe when they did internally, it never changed my view of them being anything less than their vibrant selves.
When my Nono passed, it was monumental for my family - the 'King of the House' as we all referred to him, especially my Nana. He was our rock, who should've lived to 200, let me tell you. Although we all felt the pain of his passing, it was my Nana who I looked up to most in that time. My Nana's perspective shifted completely. Using the two years after he passed to recover her heart and her mind from the man who so significantly took care of her and our family; after processing deeply, she had chosen to adopt the mindset that it was time to take care of herself. Not because she still didn't love and have thanks for my Nono but because she realized she could.
Making tomato sauce for the first time since his passing, it had always been seen as the man's job - all the brothers, cousins, and great uncles in the garage, with the big stirring spoon often finding its place in my Nono's abnormally masculine hand. However, for the first time, it got into the hands of my Nana many years later, when she finally announced - 'I'm the boss now.' At 76 years old, my Nana had figured out who the boss of her life was all along - herself. Looking at the strong women in my life who have been held to such strong traditions, not necessarily good, not necessarily bad, but frankly just all they knew, it just shows that there is no age stamp for when you're supposed to rebrand and come into your truest most authentic form.
I used to be the girl who planned in my head; married at 24, kids at 27, that's life. This is beyond what I think life is cut out to be now. Yes, marriage and kids will hopefully be added blessings to my life; however, it won’t define me. You've got too many self-exploring eras to enter before you enter the era where you must consider others as a part of yourself. Right now, it's all about you. All about you in the sense that you are now prioritizing yourself and 'being selfish', when choosing to put things that fuel you above anything that could corrupt your energy. Well, yes, for me I can see how at times, I can be caught having tunnel vision on my aspirations and my wants and needs; however, I have been taught NOT to see this as being selfish but instead, see it as embracing an era in my life that should be nurtured.
I wish everyone could live until 200. It seems like the ones we lose too early are the ones who deserve it most. However, I look at living my life now, not only using it to become who I'm meant to be, but in a way that is making those around me, especially those who I lost proud. My 14 years without my Papa and almost 7 years without my Nono have been years for me to live out their wildest dreams and in ways they would expect me to. 'Expect' meaning not to live every day like it's my last, because I find that phrase rather depressing, but instead living every day with the mindset that you have the potential to keep their energy alive in you. For me, that's living with gratitude, determination, and most importantly laughter, all while making mistakes and embracing those rocks in the road that try to get in your way. You're never too old to live out your dreams and start fresh and remember, those rocks on the road are really only pebbles in the grand scheme of your 200-year life.
Talk soon,
Gracee
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