The thing about Tumblr that probably makes me saddest is the underlying assumption that women past a certain age (which seems to be about 25?) stop having any sort of outside interests beyond family/career/kids. Like, y’all are always so shocked that grown women have lives and can fangirl as hard as we did as teenagers.
It makes me sad not because it makes me feel old (although it does), but because these younger women are constricting their own lives–they fully expect that this will happen to them someday. Y’all deserve better. Y’all deserve to EXPECT better.
And worse than that, the idea that there’s something WRONG with a grown woman who has other interests.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
One of the biggest things I realized growing up?
It doesn’t happen.
You expect somehow you will change when you are finally An Adult ™. You’ll stop enjoying the things you enjoy now for something more “adult” or “mature”. You’ll FEEL like an adult and not like a child anymore. You’ll feel comfortable and secure and not scared and unsure and confused. You expect you will feel like you have your shit together.
But I can tell you that it doesn’t happen. You’ll still feel like the “you” you were at 15 or 17 or 19.
You just have these…things to deal with. Like rent. And insurance.
You have a job either because a) you like it or b) it keeps the lights and internet on.
You’ll look up from fangirling one day and realize ‘shit. I am twenty eight years old. That’s almost 30!’. Or maybe it will be that you look down at the small child clasped around your legs and realize ‘that is my child. I have a child. A human being child.’ Or maybe it will be that you have to negotiate your budget around con tickets AND a mortgage payment.
Growing up isn’t a thing that happens.
It’s a realization that it doesn’t happen.
Holy shit, y’all. There are some AMAZING responses to this post. Yes, everything alwayshometomarvel says. All that.
Feeling like I wasn’t ‘adult’ enough fucked me up for years. I would cry at night and feel like a total piece of shit because I was married with a kid, and yet I still did ‘not adult’ things–I played MMOs, I cosplayed and went to conventions, I drew fan art and wrote fan fic. I kept waiting for the day that I would wake up and realize that what I really needed to be doing was the laundry, cleaning the house, making dinner every night, etc. Basically, be the ‘perfect’ wife and mother.
And somewhere between then and now, I somehow managed to tell myself…fuck it. I AM an adult. I go to work every day and pay the bills and help raise my son and take care of the house. I do legit adult things. AND I play MMOs, go to conventions, and participate in fandom. And THAT’S OKAY. I’m 32 years old now and finally at peace with that part of myself. (Having a supportive husband and kid doesn’t hurt either!)
All of this is such truth. Believing these things about growing up, and especially about being over 25? Really made it hard for me when I turned 30.
I was literally suicidal on my 30th birthday. I spent the whole day in tears. I felt like I had died and my life was now worthless and small and never going to be hopeful or full of promise or fun again. I felt like killing myself on my birthday because I bought into this lie that somewhere after your mid-twenties, you diminish as a woman because the only thing that made you alive and shiny was your youth.
I’m 31 one and I’m done with that shit. I’m over it. I don’t care if you think I’m too old for something. If I’m an old lady in tumblr terms, then I’m past the legal age where I’m obligated to care what you think.
So, I’m telling you girls out there right now who are in your teens and twenties, get rid of this idea of what older women are “supposed” to look like. Get rid of this idea that “soccer moms” don’t play video games or that all women over 25 should be married and contemplating kids. Get rid of the idea that fanfic and fandom and fun things are for “kids”.
Mostly, get rid of this notion that the only thing really valuable about you is your youth. Youth is part of life, but it’s not the most valuable or beautiful or exciting time of your life. I like my life at 30 about 1000% than I did at 15, 18, 20, even 25.
I’m glad you’re still here.
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I adore this post 🙌🏾🙌🏾🙌🏾
OMG guys, thank you thank you thank you so much. Because of this mind set I never, ever tell anyone my age. I’m not ashamed of it, but I know how most people here would react. I take care of everything I’m supposed to and yet, I still love all of my fandoms I’ve always had. I don’t understand why you’re supposed to just stop because you become a certain age, sorry that just doesn’t happen. As a matter of fact, now that I’m “old” I don’t have to worry about school, and parents and my future because I’m there. I work and I have money to spend on my obsessions with no one telling me I shouldn’t. I’m very happy being here at this age, I write fanfiction and I am so happy doing it. My husband tells me I should do some kind of panel on writing fanfiction the next time I go to a convention and I just shake my head. I’d love to meet some of the people who enjoy my work, but I have this fear that when they see me they’ll flip and back away. So I don’t, but I’m never giving up the things I like until the day comes when I can’t enjoy them anymore and that’s when I’m dead.
Hugs to you all!
Dotti
This whole ideal is why I go out of my way to avoid mentioning my age on tumblr. But fuck that, here it is: I’m 31. I’ve been an active part of various fandoms since I was 12 years old. My DAD dressed me up in a tiny little TNG uniform that my grandmother made for me when I was seven and paraded me around conventions. I was creating stories with the characters I loved before I knew what fanfiction was. I was literally raised to fangirl, from a family that believed being passionate about such things didn’t come with an expiration date. Why on Earth would that change as I grew up myself? My fandoms have changed through the years, as have my levels of participation, but I don’t ever expect that passion to go away.
I *just* started attempting fan art for the first time a few months ago. I’m sure a lot of people would see that as pathetic, but guess what? I’m not doing it for them. This is something that is fully my own, that I do because it makes ME happy. We live in a society that tells “adult” women that their purpose in life it to serve others and put themselves last, always. Any deviation from that is seen as selfish. So something like participating in fandom that is so purely for our own enjoyment would naturally be seen as wrong or weird from that point of view. Yeah, enough of that noise. Our fandoms are completely ours, as is the joy we derive from them.
So yes, I’m an adult. I keep a house, I cook, I clean, I pay bills and taxes, I have a respectable full time job, I have a life outside of fandom. But let me tell you, fully half of the people I work will are also fangirls. ALL of them are over 25. They go to conventions (I haven’t really, this NEEDS to change), I have SU decorations up at my desk, have SU stickers on my equipment to identify my stuff, others have SPN, others have other anime things. We all revel in our absolute nerdiness, and why shouldn’t we?
Imported from Tumblr: http://ift.tt/1QaBsuL
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