there and back again

I’ve been thinking about it all morning. What would the plot points be for that? What makes a 30 year old coming of age story?

Rather than beginnings like teenage coming of age stories, a 30’s coming of age is about change.

The thing about turning 30 is that you know yourself better, and you are usually just starting to have the means to seek what you want. You have enough life experience to know what you like and don’t like. You may have a little disposable income, freedom from family, or finally be treating something like depression.

It isn’t like being a teenager where the coming of age is new experiences; it’s coming of age in knowing what you want and changing your circumstances. You look around and think, “I want and deserve better than this, and I can do it,” and you make the change.

Getting a new job. Going back to school. Dating someone new. Moving somewhere else. Going on a long trip. Trying a new hobby. Or even just dressing differently! There’s so many ways this coming of age can occur.

But there are layers to this. Unlike a teenage growing up story where you’re writing on a blank slate, a 30’s coming of age is turning the page. You might have to do something painful. Quit your job. Break up with someone. Say goodbye to your hometown. There’s change. And with that, comes apprehension for the future and grief over the past, but you work through that anyway to seek something better for yourself.

To quote the article above, one of my favorite quotes of all time: “There’s something so deliriously pleasurable in the idea of trusting myself enough to know exactly what I want.”

Oh and by the way. This doesn’t just have to be the plot of a book or fic. This can be your life, too. You can always do better.

I spent my entire life pursuing exactly one goal: I wanted to be a veterinarian.  That was my dream from when I was a very young person.  I wanted it so badly I couldn’t even imagine wanting anything else.  And I achieved that goal!  I went to vet school.  I became a veterinarian.  I joined a practice.  And I loved what I did!  Sure there were parts I didn’t like (…a LOT of parts I didn’t like), but it was my DREAM, right?  It was worth suffering a little to live it, wasn’t it?  Because I’d loved animals for as long as I could remember and when I was 11 years old someone told me that meant I should be a veterinarian and by GOLLY, that home ec teacher must have been right, right?

…I’m sure you can see where this is going.

At 11 years old, at 18 years old, at 22 years old, at 27 years old, at fucking 32 YEARS OLD, I wasn’t secure enough in myself, in who I was, in who I wanted to be to “come of age”.  To push back against what everyone else told me I was meant to do, even when a lot of it ended up being very bad.

So my body pushed back for me.

Three back injuries in five years meant that at 32 years old, my lifelong dream was no longer a viable choice for me.  I had to walk away.  I had to leave all of that behind and figure out how on Earth I was supposed to make a living when I was now in my mid-30s, I’d never wanted to do anything else with my life other than be a vet, I had a life and an apartment that I wouldn’t be able to afford for long with no income, I was ashamed as all get out to have to start over, and now I had severe chronic pain that seriously curtailed what my options even were.

And there were so so so few blueprints in media for me to even reference.  So few ‘coming of age’ stories where the person was coming of age at my age, after something beyond their control had torn their life apart.  So I wrote my own.

I wrote a ton of fanfiction that I didn’t realize at the time was what I needed to read.  Where someone who’d lived the life they thought they should be living had it suddenly uprooted, turned on its head, and had to forge a new path when they were long past the age when that should have been a thing.  (Yet another thing I have to thank you for, Hair.  *tips my hat*  ^_^)

And I DID find a new path.  And it’s not perfect.  It’s not my “dream”.  There are problems with it, too.  But overall, I’m much more settled in my skin now at 45-going-on-46-in-a-few-months than I was at 33.  And now I know that if something uproots my life again, I have a blueprint.  I’ve written it.  I’ve lived it.  And now I’ve learned to seek out stories written by others that explore it too.

You don’t stop needing stories that reflect your life once you’re over 18.

I wanted to be a nanny. I looked after small children when I was only a slightly bigger small child than them, and I loved it. As I got older, I still loved looking after small children. When I was at school, I had the babysitting for teachers thing so sewn up at school that the teachers all used to plan their evenings out based on when I would be available to babysit for them.

BUT! I was at a Very Good School. And I was Clever! Clever girls from Very Good Schools do not become nannies and work as servants household staff for other people, they go to Good Universities and have Important Careers and EMPLOY servants household staff.

And this was the thing that was impressed upon me, quietly, politely, but firmly, and repeatedly by my teachers, my fellow pupils, and even my family.

(Here is the bit which is likely to out my job somewhat, but fuck it) My grandma told me, when I was little and told her I wanted to look after children, about a special school for nannies, where they train The Best Nannies, and I knew then that was what I wanted to do. But Clever Girls from Very Good Schools do not even go to special nanny schools, even when they train The Best Nannies. (Less clever girls might go, because they weren’t going to go to university and have Important Careers, so they might as well have a nice job for a while before they get married and have their own children.)

So I went to a Good University, and I did a very Respectable degree, and it was all… OK. I really liked my subject (and I still do) and I met fabulous people (who I still like), and I found out a lot about myself, including the facts that I have a whacking great set of learning disabilities my Very Good School had completely failed to identify, and a whacking great set of mental health issues, probably in part due to the learning disabilities, and a number of other things which meant that I was not going to be going down the, uh, straight path.

And also there was a massive global financial crash just after I graduated, and the world generally started going to hell in a handcart and nothing was as I had been told it would be.

So after being unemployed for a long time (see previous comments re: mental health and neurodivergency), I did a bunch of office temping and thought fuck it this is really boring and I started looking after small children.

And I really loved it. Even though I hadn’t done it for ages and I had grown up a lot since I had done it, and it was a lot more regulated and government inspected than it had been.

So I did another qualification in it, which I really loved. (The learning bit, college I studied at was Not Friendly to my specific job role, but I did it!) By this time I was actually in my actual 30s, and The World Had Changed.

And it became clear that if I wanted to carry on looking after small children I would probably have to do another degree. By this time, the special school for nannies, where they train The Best Nannies, was offering a degree in small children. And they were still training The Best Nannies, only now those nannies could go and do a lot of other things too because they had degrees!

So, after much discussion with my mother, who had by now resigned herself to the fact that a) I really liked looking after small children, b) I was not going to have an Important Career doing anything else, and c) I was not going to be giving her grandchildren anytime soon (or probably ever, biologically) I applied to go the the special school for nannies where they train The Best Nannies.

And I got in!

And it was amazing! I had the best time, even with a massive global pandemic and further global catastrophes. And I turned out to have even more health issues except that these ones were physical but fuck it, I kept going!

And now I am nearly not in my 30s anymore, and I have graduated from the special nanny school and I spend all day looking after small children and it is the best thing I have ever done. Even when it’s cold and we have to go to the park because swings!

And while part of me wishes I had gone straight to nanny school from actual school because I wasted a lot of time and energy I didn’t have trying to please people who did fuck all to help me and in fact cause me a lot of harm, I also… don’t regret most of it? Like , I did a lot of boring stuff but it wasn’t… bad? I met good people and bad people, and some really fucking annoying people, but that’s just how people be.

Coming of age stories as a teenager are about external experiences, about the world changing and opening up to you. The experiences you have change who you are as a person and

Coming of age in your 30s are about closing your world back down again. And not in a bad way, more like… streamlining. It’s all internal. You learn to stop doing things for the sake of other people (in general, obvious you’re still gonna do specific things for people when needed) or because of what society expects you to do.

And it’s not just in your 30s. It can happen when you’re any age, because this kind of stuff can take time for people to come to terms with, and it’s surprisingly scary to realise that you’ve spent years doing stuff you didn’t really enjoy or want to do.

We’ve all been training to think of that as a waste (of time, energy, whatever) when really it’s all contributed to us each becoming who we are.

Now, I’m finally living on my own. I’m openly bisexual, nonbinary (and not the straight daughter my parents wanted), I’m still depressed, anxious and ADHD and now I finally understand I’m probably also autistic.

And you know what?

I’ve never been happier. I had my coming of age and I became the best version of myself in my thirties, and it’s the best thing that ever happened to me.

“Princess Rescue”