End 30
And suddenly you feel old … now what?!
In the mirror you can see wrinkles that were not there before (symbol image)
© Triocean / Getty Images
Everyone talks about “aging with dignity”, but what is it? And what if you do not want to age at all?
You’ve already gotten used to being sipped on the street when teens ask you for directions. That was standard at 28 at the latest, when you were still tight overzegt, not much different to look at 18, but apparently it did. Before your 30th birthday, you were in a bad mood – how could you turn 30 now, you didn’t have a house, no child, not even a pet, and you weren’t married yet?! And most importantly, you were not yet grown up?
Unfortunately, age does not really listen to how we feel. It just pushes us forward, further and further, whether we’re ready or not. And so far you have always coped with it quite well, after a deep sigh and something to get used to. The first half of the 30s was surprisingly good, and you slowly learned that with adulthood. You make good tax returns and try to use up all the vegetables in the fridge on time. You only go out one more day on the weekend, and certainly not two weekends on each other. You’ll make it through the 35th. “Mid-30s” still sounds acceptable.
“Late 30s” just isn’t sexy anymore
And then all of a sudden you’re “late 30s,” and that doesn’t sound sexy anymore. The worst thing: After you have always been appreciated much younger, you now suddenly look like the end of 30. You look in the mirror, and look into a face that somehow no longer seems to be quite yours. There are deep lines leading from the wings of your nose to the corners of your mouth, there are deep dark circles under your eyes, although you try to sleep enough and swallow all the important vitamins. The rest of the skin doesn’t look as peachy plump as it did a few years ago, and you look at yourself and suddenly suspect what the whole thing will look like in five or ten years. Like the face of an old woman.
That in itself is not bad and quite normal. Young women become old women, just as young men become old men. Now don’t think about it too much, or you’ll be sitting groaning at the kitchen table, chin resting on your hands, musing about transience and the meaning of life. This is going too far. Google ‘ dear hyaluronic acid injection and Botox, we finally have 2021!
You should be ready for aging, right?
And then you wonder what is always meant by this “aging with dignity”. You would really like to do that, only you have so little desire for aging, and dignified you find somehow nothing on your new, permanently tired face. You decide that “aging with dignity” is something to deal with when you’re really ready for aging at some point. You’re a long way from that. Thank God you can do one or the other today to push this process out at least visually. Without having to be completely lifted and thus doing what is commonly considered “undignified aging”.
And because you are so old that you once regularly watched “Harald Schmidt”, always shortly before (or shortly after?) “Fast Forward” with Charlotte Roche, you have to remember how much he liked to joke about physical decay. You know what he meant. You think of your grandparents, who you never felt like questioning their age. Even your parents joke about it at most times. Perhaps you are the first in this family to have the time to sit vain and superficial and get in a bad mood because of a few wrinkles.
Ultimately, this remains a text without conclusion. You can’t do anything about aging – at most a few of its signs, but also probably only for a certain time-it’s one big crap. At some point, however, maybe the day comes when you just don’t care about things like optics. You’re not totally convinced yet, but maybe he’s coming. And then you will get a paper plate full of plunder pieces – something with pudding and sticky cast – from the baker, something that you can only buy as an omi according to the law. And with that, you sit in front of your TV, watch afternoon quiz shows and put your feet up. And then maybe that’s okay somehow.
