Fuck It: Age, Eccentricity, and the Problematic Concept of “Growing Up.”

Greetings, all. My name is Dee. I’m 28 years old and I dress rather unconventionally.

Courtesy of Caleb Jackson and That Guy Production

Courtesy of FlashStance Photography
https://www.facebook.com/flashstance/

My style is generally…gypsy warrior nomad demon vampire queen with a smattering of evening gowns and men’s clothes here and there. Ever since shedding the bonds of the horrifically sexist k-12 dress code, I have dressed this way, unapologetically. As an artistic creature, I enjoy body art, edgy hairstyles, and jewelry in strange places, also unapologetically.

On top of that, all my life I have wanted to be a writer, a “job” off of which virtually no one in the field makes a full living. Freelance copy editors, tutors, stay-at-home parents with hilarious blogs,  desk jockeys who get up early and stay up late to feed their writing addiction, these are the people in my field far more often than the likes of J.K Rowling or Anne Rice. As with most forms of art, for every successful celebrity, there are a million starving artists forced to treat their passion as a hobby while they pay their bills in less fulfilling ways. Photography, another love of mine, is only a slightly more successful possible career path, but a far more expensive habit to feed and maintain. I love to write, take photos, belly dance, bitch about movies, and learn new things. I am very talented in many of these pursuits, and I work very hard within them, but none of it points to a direct career path that pays bills or provides dental and a 401k.

To say that I am not ambitious is a misjudgment. I’ve completed a 121,000 word novel, taught and performed belly dance, leapt headlong into new ventures (jewelry making, ceramics, fitness, tea*, etc,) and dragged countless friends in front of my camera for photo ideas ranging from traditional to sensual to outright bizarre and/or hilarious. I easily spend 8 straight hours editing photos, writing, or critiquing/editing my writing or the writing of others. When I’m interested in something, I envelop myself in it. I’m all in, baby. Balls deep.

Yet, when many people look at my life, all they see is a woman nearing 30 without an undergrad degree (cross your fingers that’s all cleared up in a week) and a nonexistent career path who only just got engaged, so at least she’s got that going for her. But still, how sad to see a 28-year-old parading around in her underwear and body paint, regularly showing her midriff! How sad to see this woman awake in the wee hours of the morning, on weekdays, no less! How sad to a woman this age outside of an office job, a few rungs up the corporate ladder than her 22-year-old counterparts just starting out!

“Grow up” is a phrase so frequently thrown into the faces of people who don’t fit into the box that society and current culture deems suited for our chronology. Put some real clothes on. Get a normal haircut. Go to bed at 10. Get a job with benefits. Who cares if you hate it? It’s time to grow up. We thought you’d be past this phase by now. And should we express disdain or even vexation toward the idea of conforming to a norm that does not suit us, we’re labelled as lazy and immature.

I’ve struggled with shame for many years. Shame that I didn’t finish my degree on time and that I returned to school to find classrooms full of students so much younger than me. Shame that being in an office job, even a great one, became a daily struggle with depression and the constant feeling that my life had grown stale and stagnant. Shame that I dance until 2am on Wednesday nights. Shame that I’m not in a new house with a budding family. Shame that one of my greatest goals in the next ten years is getting a tattoo sleeve rather than having such and such amount of money in savings. Shame that, above all else, I would rather be writing stories, editing photos, or throwing myself into a new art that will never make me any sort of “respectable” living. I still struggle with the shame and the pressure I face in both subtle and blatant ways by society on the whole and by people in my life (recently I was even warned of my declining fertility, despite that claim being highly questionable.)

My struggles with pressure and shame dissipated in this past year. Maybe I’d finally reached the rumoured stage of the late 20s where people finally become comfortable with who they are. I think for me, though, it was far more likely that my fiancé’s presence in my life helped me accept myself. My relationship with him gave me the first sense of stability I’ve had since I stepped out of my parents’ house almost a decade ago. That stability, along with his own comfort with who he is, helped me reach a stage where I was finally able to largely shake off the shackles of my workaholic upbringing and say “I do not want that life for myself, and that is okay.”

I don’t want to remove my piercings and hide my tattoos every day. I don’t want to trade in my crop tops and gypsy attire for turtlenecks and slacks. I don’t want to do the same exact thing every Monday through Friday from 9-5, dreading Mondays and living only for the weekend. I don’t want my futurebabies’ first steps to be witnessed by a daycare employee.

So, I won’t.

So long as I can pay my bills and have relative financial stability for my family, I will be content to continue to dress and learn and do whatever the hell I want. I will happily take two part time jobs with varying tasks and hours over a full time job I don’t like. I will happily take a full time job I love over a more lucrative one that I can’t stand. Why is it considered lazy to want to live without the grotesquely unhealthy weight of constant stress on your shoulders? Why is it considered immature to dress the way you want?

I’ve noticed an interesting pattern when it comes to how we judge eccentricity at certain ages (especially regarding women.)

From childhood to middle school, eccentricity is often celebrated. This child is different. She’s artistic, she’s independent, she’s her own person. Good for her!

When adolescence creeps along, the term “phase” appears. She’s acting out, but it’s just a phase. She’ll grow out of it. The fishnets and spooky music, they’re just a phase.

In college we’re given a bit more leeway. She’s exploring who she is! She’s enjoying her independence! She’ll settle down eventually.

Post college is where the trouble seems to start. By now, we should be “settled” into our roles. From now all through middle age, the tattoos should be covered, the piercings gone, the crazy hair dyed back to a natural shade. Non-lucrative passions (now known as “hobbies”) are reserved for weekends, should we still have the energy to pursue them. But the next forty to fifty years are reserved for the ladder climb, the daily grind, making and saving and spending. Deviance is outright rejected. People who dress in eccentric styles are “pathetic,” “immature,” and “backwards.” Stay-at-home moms and dads are “lazy.” People who don’t have solid career paths in this stage of life are designated as somehow less than those who keep their noses shoved into the grindstone, because that’s what adults do.

So why is it that we are released from such stringent restrictions of the self when we are no longer young enough to work? Buzzfeed and Pinterest are bloated with lists of the “awesome” elderly with tattoos and crazy hair. Netflix has a documentary about old women who dress however the hell they want. We love stories about grandmothers who start bands and buy motorcycles, of old men who dye their hair green and hike up mountains. Elderly people who deviate from the norm of mild-mannered grandparent are held up as paragons of individuality, now suddenly celebrated again instead of squelched by society.

Does anyone else find this severely fucked up? Why do we have to wait until we’re retired to be who we are? Why do we have to shove so much of who we are or what we love aside in order to, as someone once put it to me, “work as hard as we can for as long as we can?”

Well, you can call me immature, childish, lazy, whatever you like, but I am not waiting until I’m in my 70s to be who I am. I thumb my nose at the cultural pressure to do so. I defy you, stars.

It is interesting to note that we as a society greatly cherish the elderly who defied norms all throughout their lives, not just in their retirement years. We all have that great aunt who never got married and has a new crazy artsy scheme every month, or the grandfather who still rides in a motorcycle gang. I see no reason to shy away from an awesome life simply because the majority of people will look down on me until I’m old enough to admire. So long as my family and I are safe and happy, we will be who we are, do what we want, dress how we want. I will flash my tattoos and write my penniless novels all through my 50s if that’s what I want to do.  I will be some iteration of this same little freak my entire life.

And anyone who doesn’t like it can kiss my 28-year-old fishnetted ass.

*Tea might seem like a throwaway, but I’m considering opening a tea shop someday, so I’ve dived into learning all about tea and the tea business, which is on the same level of complexity as learning about wine.