is my best behind me?

Happy birthday to me. The kids are asleep. I have a glass of wine in my hand and it’s the commencement of my nightly free time. I’m not Mami right now. My shoulders slouch from the delicious relaxation of it. Thirty seven, I think. Man.

My entire life I’ve wanted to jump ahead of where I currently am. For one reason or another, I’ve felt behind. At some points, I wanted freedom, a relationship. Then it was children, etc.

When I was in college and pining for a life seemingly outside of my grasp, my mom told me to relax and enjoy exactly where I was. She said, Vienna waits for you. I listened to that Billy Joel song on repeat letting the message chip away at my ego and allowing the light into my soul.

Billy Joel got it. And apparently I wasn’t alone. It was a common ailment for people to forget to slow down and truly be present to their life, all parts of it.

You can afford to lost a day or two… the first time I heard that lyric it felt like something I needed to hear. Medicine for my mind, which seemed to focus on all the things that were missing. I’ve always felt a little like I had to keep running to catch up to everyone else.

My mid-late twenties were the first time I felt like maybe I had arrived to this elusive age I had been racing towards. I was in a committed relationship (the man I would go on to marry), I was traveling, I was working in a competitive job, we bought an apartment together… life for a moment seemed right.

It was a brief time and while I enjoyed it, eventually, the feeling of “what’s next” snuck in. It’s only now that I realize how much pressure I’ve always put on my age. What certain ages should look like, what they mean, what shape they should come in. I’ve harshly measured myself against these ideas and fallen short of my expectations.

As I’ve gotten older, I feel like I know less. Which, ironically, I think is wisdom. When I was young, I was so fucking certain about things, you know? The ways in my head were the right ones, always–– without exception. I don’t feel that way anymore and that is the gift of aging. My gift, at least. *Perspective*

I’ve dismantled a lot of these made up rules and come to the conclusion that it’s all meaningless. Or, said better, the meaning of what a certain age should be is completely up to you. It’s relative. And yet…. YET. I turned 37 and my old judgements descended upon me.

For the last two years, I’ve taken a break from working a job and getting paid for my time. I make that distinction because I’ve worked on our airbnb, but without that clear-cut exchange of money and collaboration, it doesn’t feel quite the same. Although I’d like this to eventually be a bigger source of income (more on that in future emails), I don’t consider vacation rentals my career.

Once upon a time, in what I didn’t realize might have been the peak of my career thus far, I worked in Miami’s design district putting on art shows in the thick of the city’s coolest events.

I’ve always had a tendency to romanticize my past.  It’s a fantastic character trait that makes life super relaxing for me. I can’t help to do this even though I know none of the things I put rosy filters around were perfect, or maybe even good for me. With respect to my career, this is what’s coming back and biting me in the ass on the eve of my 37th year.

Partly, I’m older and wish I would have enjoyed it more. Appreciated it better, stayed out later, all of that. Deep down I always knew I couldn’t work for someone else. However, I wish I would have had more fun in spite of noticing the things that didn’t work. Just because it wasn’t permanent, didn’t mean I couldn’t be fully present to that experience.

Around the time that particular role ended, I moved to a very small mountain town in Western North Carolina called Bryson City. The exact opposite of Miami in almost every way. A fresh start. I started a new job working remotely for a toy company doing their marketing and I found something cathartic in that. It hit a different kind of creative spot. I was relieved not to be on call for events. I valued the flexibility of being cozied in the mountains away from an office. And there was something refreshingly unpretentious about dealing with people who didn’t take themselves or their art so seriously.

During the pandemic, I also took the time to publish the book that had been haunting my dreams. And I literally mean that. My creative genie, as I call it, is a night owl and it REALLY bugs me that she visits me during the wee hours of precious sleep with writing ideas…but here we are.

Publishing my first book was SO fun. I got to flex all the skills I acquired in 10 years of working with visual artists and writers in order to create my own piece of art. A book. My book! It was awesome, and I’m endlessly proud I brought it to form. When I laid eyes on the first copy of Embrace That Girl, it was one of the best days of my life.

Then I got pregnant. I don’t mean that to sound like a drag. I really wanted to have a baby. However, my book launch came and went. My remote marketing gig came to an end. So much in my world changed those 9 months.

By the time my daughter was born, my only responsibility became being her mother. I had to figure out who I was in that role, and I didn’t realize there would be a type of grief in mourning the life I had before her, including the career that always felt somewhat effortless to me.

Two years and a whole other baby later, I am further away from my career and 37… comfortably late thirties. I guess that was the case at 36, but something about 36 felt close enough to 35 to still be considered mid-thirties. Maybe I was doing girl math? Maybe I was in denial? But something about 37 makes me feel like my mom, which I am. I’m the mom now because my mom is grandma, or Tata. Becoming a parent and aging is a real mind fuck.

Will I ever host cool events collaborating and interviewing artists at art Basel? Or write short form skits for Dan Marino? How about create a space to allow women’s voices in the art world to be heard? Shoot a commercial for Dunkin’ Donuts? My resume or LinkedIn, if I gave a shit about updating it, would be stacked with interesting projects. For 10 years, I really gave it a go. I was good.

No… I was great.

*Here I am again talking about cool art things.*

And now, that girl feels so far behind me. Do I want her back? I’m not sure. I have two young children and being here with them feels like the most fulfilling thing I could do with my time and yet I wonder… are my best years behind me? Was I at my prime professionally and didn’t realize it?

So many older women have told me in one way or another that their thirties were the best. Having young children? Peak earning potential? Not giving af about all the things you did in your twenties? Looking and feeling great? Well, you get it… It all gets harder from here is a sense I’ve pulled together from tidbits told to me.

So… 💩. Have I already outgrown my bests? Am I in the last of them right. freaking.now?

I don’t want this to be true, of course. Maybe this is a mini mid-life crisis. As a creator, I feel like there’s an energy within me ramping up again and I don’t feel slowed down by my children. The opposite, some days I feel so inspired by them. They are beings… that I CREATED. The ultimate act of artistic expression. I made them and I’m helping to mold them and also they aren’t mine at all, they become something else on their own that the world interacts with, exactly like art.

I wish more women spoke about motherhood like that. I resent the term stay at home mom and the implications it conjures up for people. I can sum it up in the faces of strangers or old acquaintances when they ask what I’m up to and my answer is focusing on being a mother.

I know better than to seek that validation from anyone else, and yet, we are tribal creatures, so of course I want acknowledgment. Ultimately though, I can’t blame anyone for reflecting back to me the things I’ve been secretly scared about… Another piece of wisdom I’ve internalized at 37? It’s never someone else. It’s always about you.

To truth is I do miss the validation. Some days, I rely on my friends or sweetheart to acknowledge a victory that no one else but me and my toddler have witnessed. To recognize the talent it takes to be a great mom.

Why don’t more people talk about that? My experience of how people see mothering is as somewhat commonplace. Because many of us choose to have a family, it’s not something that’s recognized as taking talent, as something that’s worked on like a specialized skill set.

I guess I always assumed by this age I’d be a best selling author or an art director. It’s really hard to be putting so much time into things that my ego has decided don’t count towards my career, or if I read between the lines, my self worth.

I hate that as a woman becoming a mother marks a dotted line in my life. There is a clear delineation between the before and after.  

Somewhere deep inside me where my higher self resides, I know this is not the end of my bests, career or otherwise. It’s during quiet moments like this that I can think clearly and know I’m exactly where I need to be — even though I was just panicking about it. To be human is to learn how to hold opposite things in your heart. 🙃

In fact, how’s this for fate. The first time I finished this week’s draft, my daughter fell asleep on me. As I felt her full body weight sink into mine, all my anxiety about who I am and what I’m doing at this age faded away. I would not trade her tiny little body laying on top of me for any validating event or project. I know I’ll miss these days. History has taught me that.

The second time I was editing this, my son fell asleep on me. If I pay attention life is always talking to me, reassuring me. It’s not a coincidence this essay ended how it did. It’s the physical representation of the two parts of myself that I’ve been grappling to make sense of. Is it possible to be a mother and a creator? I think so. Here it is working in harmony.

yours in 37,

c.