The Myth of Being “Done” (and Why I Don't Buy It)

Because life doesn’t come with an expiration date, no matter what society tells you

Expiration Date – Rendered by the author in Midjourney

By now, we're all pretty familiar with the unspoken cultural norm that says once you reach a certain age, life quietly rolls down the shutters on you, whether you're ready or not. The fun is supposed to be over. You’re no longer “the target demographic,” no longer the shiny thing in the spotlight. If life were a high school cafeteria, you’ve basically been quietly reassigned to the side table with the wilted salad at that point.

Naturally, no one really says any of this out loud (except when they do). It’s more in the way advertising pivots away from you, in the roles women are offered in movies, in the slightly pitying tone people use when they say things like, “Well, at least you don’t have to worry about all that anymore.” The underlying meaning is that your days of being alive-alive are over, so please enjoy your new hobbies — couponing, knitting, and hoping for grandkids.

Well, I'm here to tell that that’s nonsense.

The Myth of Being "Done"

If you’re a woman, especially, you’ve probably already felt it, even if you're still young. It's like someone stamps this social expiration date across your forehead at some point in your 30s or 40s. By then, apparently, your best hair days are behind you, your skin is now public property for retinol marketing campaigns, and if you still want to feel attractive or adventurous? Well, that’s honestly seen as kind of sad.

But here’s the thing that I've personally noticed. The desire to feel beautiful or alive doesn't necessarily go away. Society just keeps telling you it should. Like, “Thanks for playing, we’ll take it from here. Go sit down.” And it’s maddening.

It's also problematic because we eventually start to absorb those messages and believe them. Even people who don’t consciously subscribe to the idea that fun, beauty, and vitality are youth-only clubs can still feel it creeping in. Even people like me, who've never really valued social norms or cared about meeting them. That gnawing little whisper inside: 

"Maybe it really is over. Maybe I’ve already had my shot at life."

But then something happens.

The Swedish Inn That Doesn’t Exist

Last night I went to Sweden. Not on a plane with my passport in hand, and not with my bank account weeping at the cost of airfare. I just… slipped there. Outside of time and space, while I was sleeping.

I stayed in a little inn with a big dining room full of travelers. I ate potatoes and fish, simple but perfect, alongside flatbread with an herb-cheese spread that might honestly have been the best thing I’ve ever tasted, even though it only existed in a dream.

It felt real enough that when I woke up, my hands and feet were buzzing, as though I’d crossed some hidden border and only just re-entered my body. Real enough that the memory stayed with me all day, even while I was chewing my way through all my "get it done before the weekend" tasks. 

I thought about it while answering emails, while juggling client deadlines, while doing all the mundane things that make up real life. I even made a couple of quick renders of the meal, just to hold on to it and remember how it looked, smelled, and tasted before I forget forever. Looking at it now, I almost believe it was a memory.

The Travel I Never Had

I’ve never really been able to afford to travel. At least not in the sweeping, glamorous sense of hopping on planes and visiting countries whenever wanderlust strikes. I dreamed of it when I was younger and fully took it for granted that I'd do it one day. I thought my adulthood would be full of stamps on passports and photographs of me grinning like a demon with a secret in front of landmarks.

But adulthood didn’t go that way. At all. Adulthood has been a never-ending parade of bills, financial worries, and the grind of survival. Trips abroad were always out of reach, filed under “someday” and then quietly filed away again.

So maybe it makes sense that when my subconscious wants to give me the gift of travel, it does it in the most magical way possible. 

Portals, liminal spaces, places you can only get to by stepping outside of ordinary time. When I dream of London, I arrive through a strange terminal full of glowing doors. When I dream of islands, they appear where no reasonable map would place them. When I dream of Sweden, I don’t book a flight. I just arrive.

A Very Big Win for Cat

So earlier in the month, I felt a little bit inspired on a random Sunday morning and popped off a new Medium article after weeks of just focusing on my freelancing for a while. It was an advice article aimed at younger people in their 20's, filled with all the things I wish at 44 that I'd understood at their age. It did pretty well initially -- enough to make me happy. It got curated, as well as picked up for publication by The Post-Grad Survival Guide -- very cool things that I was proud of and grateful for, but nothing that hasn't happened to a bunch of my other articles so far.

Then a couple of days ago, the damn thing started going bananas and blowing up all of a sudden. At this point, it's accumulated tens of thousands of views, reads, and claps. It's even eclipsed the initial success of that first article I published over there -- the big "beginner's luck" win I've been trying to duplicate for the past six months -- so I'm super excited. This means a very badly needed chunk of money in my account next month, as well as plenty of exposure for my work that I probably need even more. (I am trying to make fetch happen, after all.)

I think the most gratifying part of this may be the feedback I've gotten from other people. Sure, there are always a couple of trolls who feel the need to swoop in and criticize what you wrote or just be salty in general because they're big mad they're not in your shoes. The great majority of these folks who reached out to me were kind, supportive, and sweet as far as the things they wrote though. People tweeted me, they emailed me, they added me all across all my social media platforms, and they thanked me for what I wrote because it resonated with them. That sort of thing is very humbling and validating for someone like me, as all I've ever wanted in life was to be heard. 

Blood Carrots

Last night, I dreamed I was a carrot. I was planted in a field with a lot of other carrots and tended by farmers that apparently took farming super seriously. To make sure all the carrots grew nice and big, they kept taking animals and even people out to the fields and slaughtering them on the spot so they could fertilize the fields with all the blood. It also rained almost constantly wherever this was.

In the dream, I kept soaking up all the blood and all the rain through the outside of my carrot body and it was weirdly satisfying. Like eating a huge plate of exactly what you've been craving when you're so hungry you think you're going to faint. Also, I never got too warm because my whole body was made of vegetable, safe underneath the surface of the earth. And my carrot top really liked blowing in the breeze. I knew I'd get harvested and eaten one day, but for some reason I was really excited about it.

Twenty-Five Apples

Every once in a while, my mind will sink its teeth into something kind of silly and refuse to let go of it. It's both frustrating and cool at the same time. Last night it was this lyric from one of the songs on Kate Pierson's solo album. I can't recall what track it is off the top of my head, but the lyric talks about being "split like an apple thrown against the wall".

Now... if an apple is thrown against a wall so hard that it splits, that's a pretty sad state of affairs for the apple. It's now a sad puddle of goo. It will never nourish anyone. It will never become pie or apple cider. It will never grow into a tree. Except the chord structure and melody pattern attached to that particular lyric is actually really bright and transcendent -- not sad at all. It makes it sound like the apple was somehow stronger than the wall even though it split from the impact.

So while I was falling asleep last night, my mind got its fangs into that little thing from that one song I'd listened to earlier in the day. And I kept dreaming about this apple and all the possible things that might have happened to it when it hit the wall. In one scenario, a bird of paradise made out of purple light came out of the apple and flew away. In another, the apple made the wall and the building attached to it crumble into dust because it refused to split at all. There must have been twenty-five different dreams and twenty-five different amazing things that happened to the apple.

Happy Birthday, Robin Williams

Last night, I dreamed that I met Robin Williams in the afterlife. He was hosting a party at his house in heaven. It had really huge glass windows, retro 60's furniture, and a fully stocked bar area. People were drinking martinis and lounging around on bean bag chairs. The walls were covered in dark green velvet and each guest was wearing blue, purple, or green. Some people were also wearing Mardi Gras beads. I had on a purple dress with green feather trim. I also had a fan made of peacock feathers.

Robin Williams was wearing this peacock blue suit and a striped tie. He was going around to everyone that was there, saying hello and welcoming them to his home. When he got to me, he told me I had the most radiant hair he'd ever seen and said: "It gets better, you know. Don't worry. You won't have to bring it either." He knew I was going to ask him how he was feeling -- particularly whether he'd been required to carry his depression to heaven.