26-year-old butt.
26-year-old butt.
It's a milestone. I discovered it in my slow, painful transition from 25 to 26 while sorting through my closet.
Anyone else get in dangerous moods where you want to burn everything you own in a helpless attempt to reduce the clutter? Seems like a bit of an emotional decision, but you’re too busy ripping clothes off hangers and tossing them into big black trash bags to sort through all that time-consuming self-reflection?
I repeat this pattern of giving away half of my clothes every few months and maybe a therapist and I should look into it, but while I’m logically getting rid of items I truly don't wear/like/feel brave enough to put on anymore, I'm also not in the financial position to replace the things I get rid of. This results in annoyingly repetitive outfits regardless of the weather and growing resentment towards the only things that made the cut in the last purge.
I'll be walking around in a bathrobe by 27 at this rate.
Well, like clockwork I tore into my closet again, but this time, there was a new factor on the scene: my aging butt. At the time of this discovery, I was going to turn 26 in a few horrifying weeks. I started to feel my body rapidly aging at 13 years old and it's been a series of newfound aches and pains since. And while I am 600 on the inside, I realized that some items in my closet had to pass this new physical maturity test.
Were these sandals 26-year-old appropriate?
Will my Forever 21, stretchy jeans endure the testing fire of my blossoming sophistication?
Did I want to bring this thrift store, floral spaghetti strap dress that I told myself at one point: "oooh, date dress" into my late 20's? LATE 20's? I just threw up a little.
Here's the ugly rub: I had to put on that spaghetti strap dress and ask if I could see myself wearing it while meeting the following:
· A 30+-year-old in a trendy craft brewery
· A law student in a vegan cafe
· A financially stable individual currently in escrow at a wine and dine
· A well-read intellectual who wanted to discuss foreign affairs in the coffee shop of a local bookstore
The clear answer was no. Was my name Brittney? Did I have “social media manager” in the bio of my LinkedIn profile?
26-year-old butt had no business being in that dress. Here you go, Goodwill.
Every article of clothing, I did the butt check of: “Does this item fit the aesthetic of the life I’m planning on living moving forward?”
It had to be done because 26 is a new woman. 26 doesn't put up with poorly designed back pockets. 26 wears what’s sustainable, breathable, and indicative of the persona of the classy lady sporting it.
I think it was the object of transition I needed because honestly, as stupid as it sounds, it helped carve a way out of the familiar agony of turning a year older. In drawing a straight line between what I used to be okay with and what I was defining as my new standard, I was empowered and even excited in my aging instead of feeling like a victim to it.
Birthdays are a little more bitter than sweet these days. Coming from someone who wanted to be extremely impressive at a young age—for people to be stunned that I was only whatever age, but exuded so much wisdom, to be taken more seriously than my counterparts—it's difficult to look back on the last decade and not feel like I've quickly run out of time to be a wunderkind.
In my generation of extended childhood, the sweet window of being impressively responsible or achieved or “mature for my age” is pretty much shut. I don't get pats on the head anymore for paying my bills. I'm an adult. Gone are the days that it's cute I pay off my credit card every month. It's just what's expected.
Now the fun of comparing myself to celebrities born in the 2000s is the haunting game I play.
I think a lot of us would say that if we were to ask our 9-year-old selves what we envisioned we’d be doing or what we’d have at 25, 26, 27 and beyond, the lives we dreamt up then look very different from the realities we live right now. To be fair, some of us might’ve believed we’d be a dinosaur or Indiana Jones when we grew up, but I’d also bet a lot of our kid-selves thought we’d be married by now, working our dream jobs, and have all the money to buy the name-brand cereals that mom always told us to put back on the shelf.
I, for one, don’t have any of these things. My budget talks me out of the luxury of Apple Jacks every grocery trip.
However, turning the page to 26 has prompted me to take inventory of the person I’ve gradually become over the last quarter century. This includes the things I appreciate, the things I find funny, the way I’ve learned to engage people, the books and music and movies I enjoy, and the things I find fascinating.
I've found myself use my new test to filter through other items beyond dress pants and skirts. Is that response 26-year-old-butt? Is that cheap wine 26-year-old-butt? Is that love prospect 26-year-old-butt?
26 and her butt are showing me the fruit of my choices in the values I see reflected in my life. It’s been opportunity after opportunity to settle into more authenticity—saying what I want, unashamedly responding how I want to respond, seeing the layers of the person I am unfold.
The longer I live, the more I am impatient for the day when I find myself at 70+ and have earned the right to truly cut the crap, get down to brass tacks, and say it like it is. I awe in wonder at the elderly who call people out on blatant bullshit without missing a beat or who say no when they want to say no and say it without fluff. Elderly people aren’t afraid of what nameless strangers think of them in grocery stores, they aren’t changing themselves to impress anybody anymore, they aren’t plagued by the fear of minimally disappointing someone.
They’re unapologetic and glowing with seasoned confidence.
I’m sure I’ll find myself fighting the growing pains of turning 27 a year from now, but I suppose I’ll never get to my bad ass 70-year-old butt if I don’t embrace this one.