On aging
I’m starting to feel my age (28) and the pull towards full grown adulthood. Most big decisions I make I make intuitively and without much fear of consequences. Move across the country and dedicate yourself to a career in science? No problem. Do it on a motorcycle? Sounds cool. Buy a dilapidated condo in the closest city 30 miles from work? Sure. Ask your girlfriend to move in and renovate it together? Hell yeah. Minor decisions, like should I bail on this thing I said yes to earlier because its too expensive and I don’t want to go, still plague me.
In my work, I am sure of myself, not overly so, but I know which mistakes it’s plausible I’ve made and which mistakes I don’t make. I’m world class in my technical work and have been for a couple years. I have a project that I’m very excited about, a beautiful complicated system I’ve built which I has just started to produce real results. Nervous that the results will only be enough for a big paper, anxious that they will be big enough that I might be able to make something real out of them. Grateful that I have the privilege of building new and exciting things as my career, and for the help I got from a fellowship. Tired of the constraints that the coddling structure of academia puts on me, and increasingly impatient in pushing back on them.
I know what a good cocktail tastes like, and how to make many from memory. I’ve learned the issues I have which limit me and have gotten better at noticing and dealing with them. My pool game is better than most, my girlfriend and I frequently lay down the law at the pool bar we like to go to, but always have a couple too many drinks at. I have a wide repertoire of home cooking and have explored new machines, textures and methods. I can deal with motorcycle issues efficiently. My gym and fasting routine has been steady for over a decade now. I get in to work at 7AM every day and work relentlessly for 9-10 hours. I can develop every type of film and take pretty good pictures. I can plumb a sink, toilet, change an outlet, build cabinets, tile a floor, refinish old furniture. I have many stories from the messier years of my life.
My older sister having the first baby of my immediate family woke up something in me. The earth is spinning! It’s going around and around the sun. My parents are getting older, I can see the first wrinkles on my face. I want to be close to my family. I want to lay down some roots and build something. Something new that will place me in the world, and to build a life for myself and the ones I love. I miss my friends, and hope that that I can help them in whatever way they want. I want everyone in my life to try hard and succeed at what they try at.
Aging has come with some pain, and the emotions I feel are infrequently so raw as they were when I was young. But I’m grateful for my place in the world and looking forward to seeing how things pan out.