On Getting Older
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I was recently talking to a client who is approaching 50 years old. I was curious about what was changing for him now that he’s approaching a new decade. How was he seeing the world differently? How was he seeing himself differently?
“People say that as you get older you stop caring what people think, but that’s just not true. It’s not that you stop caring what everyone thinks about you, but that your priorities become much more clear.”
I knew exactly what he meant, at least in part. I have only recently entered my 30’s, but I can already see that happening. I’m sure this happens for everyone, but especially as a woman you enter the world having to consider every possible way you can be perceived by every possible person. It’s exhausting and mentally draining. You spend so much time worrying about how other people think about you that you don’t even have time to consider how you think about yourself.
You spend your teens trying on identities and personalities. You’re so young and everything is new. The world is filled with infinite possibilities which is both exciting and terrifying. You don’t have any answers because you’re still trying to figure out what the hell the questions are. You have ideas about the kind of future you want, but it feels theoretical and distant like a galaxy millions of light years away. People ask you what you want to be when you grow up, where you want to go to college. You play an internal game of M.A.S.H arranging and rearranging every possible future you can conceive of. You stand at an intersection with an infinite number of directions you could go.
You spend your 20’s slowly accumulate your adult firsts: first adult job, first adult relationship, first adult promotion, first adult apartment. But everything isn’t always a steady incline and you accrue your first (and maybe second and third) adult heartbreak, maybe your first adult layoff, your first shitty roommate as an adult, your first adult friend breakup, your first adult financial blunder, your first (and maybe second and third and fourth) adult existential crisis, your first adult health scare.
But with every good thing and with every bad thing you gain something. The world, which used to be so scary is unknown, is now being shaded by lived experience. You used to make decisions blindly, but now you have data. You’re able to make decisions based on what you want, but also what you don’t want. You’re at another intersection. While the number of roads is no longer infinite, the number of directions you could go is still overwhelming.
As I get older, I can feel my world shrink and expand simultaneously. Perhaps some things in life gain their allure from their mystery. But once you shed light on them you think, “This path is not for me. This person/these people are not for me.” The number of futures I could experience keeps getting smaller, but in a good way. I know the world a little better because I know myself a little better. I can more confidently say, “I know what I want out of my life and the people in it.” I am not for everyone because everyone is not for me. And that’s more than okay.
Hi! I’m Anna Carter, a GFE escort in Manhattan, NYC. I’m originally from Atlanta, GA.