Ten cool things I get to do as a 30something adult that I did not get to do as a child or teenager:
1) Set a schedule that works for me. I work second shift specifically so I can stay up late and get up late. Can’t do that with school.
2) Collect whatever cool, weird shit I want. Buttons? Sure. Anime merch? You got it. Many many skeins of weirdly-colored yarn I may never use? I have four whole tubs of it.
3) Control my own wardrobe.
4) My periods got shorter and way less sucky in terms of cramps, accidentally turning my bed into a murder zone, etc. I have been the miserable ball of pain with ten days of nausea and heavy bleeding and cramping, and now I’m that asshole you all hate who has the three-day periods that are mostly spotting. A lot of people who menstruate report this kind of shift happening.
5) I still get acne from time to time (especially in a mask), but it’s not nearly as bad as my late teens/early 20s, and I know better now how to minimize it and make it go away faster. (A good facial cleanser. A good facial cleanser. Don’t waste your time with that Clean n Clear crap. Invest in something like Clinique or Oil of Olay and make sure you use moisturizer. I use Arbonne. It will change your life.)
6) I haven’t yet done this because I want to plan it perfectly first, but: go to a hotel with a spa, by myself, get a mani/pedi/facial/massage, chill in the hot tub, go up to my room, and laze around all evening in a very posh bathrobe and I don’t have to tell anyone where I am. “I’m going to be unavailable for the night” is a completely legitimate thing you can do.
7) As you develop life experience, you develop perspective. That is why when I skinned my knee at age six I screamed and cried and was inconsolable for an hour, long after the pain had faded, but this past March I cut my thumb so badly I needed four stitches and my response was to swear (because ow), look at it, and go “huh. That’s not good. I should probably see if my roommate can take me to the ER” and then I went and did that with no tears shed and no screaming. It’s true of physical pain and it’s true of emotional pain, too. You become able to just kind of take a step back and say “how bad is this really?” and realize that quite often, it isn’t actually that bad.
8) I get to pick what’s on TV and I get to pick what flavor of ice cream to buy to eat while watching it.
10) I was in my mid-20s before I found my tribe. The “weird anime kids” at cons are now all my children and neither I nor they make the rules, that’s just how it is. As you get older, you find other people who love the things you love, and you connect, and those friendships are wonderful.
Stick with it. There are so many reasons, big and small.
