Not Too Old for the Hostel: Lia B.

I met Lia B. through the Wooden Shoe, but only briefly. The last time I saw her was actually on her 30^th birthday in Center City Philadelphia. It was late February of this year, and I had just left a labor solidarity rally across from city hall with a couple other friends from the Shoe. We ran into Lia as she was leaving the building where she works for a much-needed break. We wished her a happy birthday and James told her about my project. Lia seems like a great person with a committed passion for both animal and human liberation, and adventure.

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I had always figured by 30 years old I would be tired of the shenanigans that defined my youth, but it seems like not only am I not tired of it, I don’t know how to out grow it. I have a somewhat serious job. I have an amazing little bulldog mix that I have miraculously kept fed and homed for 3 years, and a completely disgusting collection of travel souvenirs that I really should just get rid of (would anyone want a sand "snow" globe from morocco, or a volcanic rock from Iceland?).  But while I am proud of my work ethic, alcohol tolerance, cooking skills, and dog mommy-ing abilities, does that really fit the popular conceptualization of "adult"? Somehow I doubt it...

Recently when on my 5th stay in Barcelona I wondered out loud to the friends I was traveling with, "When are you too old to stay in a hostel?" We looked around and saw young tattooed Irish guys puking into garbage pails, various Barca soccer fans - fresh off the Malaga win- running through the hostel screaming for their team, beautiful college girls from Portugal shrieking from the sight, and random fornicators making everyone feel awkward. My two friends said out loud, "Should we have just paid for a hotel?" I felt comfortable and at home in that environment, but it made me stop and think: Adults don’t stay at places like this. Am I going to be that odd 50 year old women, still going on vacation with a back pack and vans, looking for squats somewhere, carrying powdered soy milk and a stash of cliff bars? 

My parents worry about me. They ask me when I'm going to get married, constantly. They ask me when I'm going to buy a home. When am I going to "settle down"? When am I going to wear clothes that match? When am I going to look back and realize that all of this procrastinating on "growing up" has stultified my life? Don’t I want to accomplish these "goals" society/ my parents/ my peers have all accepted as the norm? Or do I want to dust off my backpack, put my sneakers on, and ride my bike around Cambodia this fall?

30 to me, right now, is self actualization. My life has been a quirky, awkward journey, filled with music, passion, rage, food, alcohol, metrocards, passport stamps, broken bones, and soy products. I have been so lucky to be surrounded by loving friends and family at every turn. Maybe I don’t want to be the weirdo who is "too old for the hostel" but I definitely want to keep my adventurous spirit. I don’t think growing up means giving up, settling for anything, or ceasing to have fun, but I do think the expectations associated with growing up do not work for me.

At 30 I have accomplished more than I could ever imagine, and done things I have only dreamed of. I have kept my priorities of social justice and animal rights, and even while working in a capitalistic industry, I have remained true to myself and to my work, conducting business with an honest candor that might not be as commonplace as it should. I have been realizing that while I am older and hopefully wiser, I don’t have to change myself to fit my birthday. Maybe I will never "grow up" as most people imagine, but I will always be changing, learning, and enjoying as much as I can.

The Return of Saturn: Traci Yoder

It is my pleasure to introduce you to one of the most solid people I know: Traci Yoder. I wish Traci was in Philly when I first moved here. It took about a year of staffing at the Wooden Shoe for our paths to finally cross, when she relocated to this city and quickly joined the collective. Traci has saved my life during a particularly difficult period recently, and this is not unusual for her. She is that superhero of a friend that a number of people in her life count on for providing sanity, support, and masterful Tarot card readings. Traci is our rock, helping us feel better about the world and ourselves.  

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For those who know me well, it should come as no surprise that I choose to reflect on turning 30 by writing about Saturn Return. If you pay no attention to astrology, or have never heard of the return of Saturn, a quick Google search will give you all the details. To summarize- Saturn Return refers to the time when the planet returns to the place in its orbit it occupied when a person was born. It takes approximately 28.5 years for Saturn to make a full rotation, which means that the first Saturn Return begins around the age of 28 and lasts for two years. The thirtieth birthday, therefore, falls just as Saturn Return is coming to a close, and provides a sense of culmination and completion to the astrological process that is considered to be the transition from the first phase of life into adulthood.

Let me be frank- Saturn Return can be one of the most difficult periods in life. It forces people to define who they are, what they want to do with their lives, and to what degree their lives up until that point have reflected their own values and goals. For those lucky people who spent the years leading up to Saturn Return following a path that felt right for them, they will experience this process as one of solidification and success. For those who spent the first part of their lives following the expectations of others, this period will be less pleasant. Unfortunately, most people seem to fall in the latter category, myself included.

Two years ago, I was living in Gainesville, FL. I had a long-term partner who I adored and owned a beautiful house. I was well on my way to finishing my PhD in Anthropology and beginning my life as a professor and researcher. I had accomplished a great deal and had the love and support of family, friends, and mentors. Everyone, including myself, thought that my life was on-course.

And then…THE RETURN OF SATURN. To be brief, the next two years went something like this: I left the Anthropology program, started another graduate program in Library Studies, got a new job in a university library, ended my five-year relationship, moved out of my house, quit my job, left Florida and moved back to my hometown, left my hometown and moved to Philadelphia to live with one of my oldest friends, started a new relationship, worked at a restaurant to pay the bills, ended the new relationship, changed roommates, left the dead-end job in favor of a slightly better job as a free-lance editor, and got back into radical organizing.

Why did all this happen? Honestly, there was no event or stimulus from the outside world that pushed me to change my entire life. Nothing but a nagging suspicion on my part that something wasn’t right…and that this feeling could not be ignored. Not everyone experiences such dramatic changes during their Saturn Return (I’ll admit I have a penchant for building and destroying things). However, my story certainly reflects how much a person’s life can change in a short period of time, and how those changes (which barely make sense at the time) can lead to a radically different path.

A few lessons I learned through Saturn Return, which hopefully will be useful to folks who are experiencing theirs at the moment:

You’ll feel alone most of the time. Learn to appreciate solitude and enjoy your own company. It may take a while. I can’t pretend I always handled my sense of aloneness gracefully. I’m not terribly proud to say that some days during this two-year period, I hid in my room all day, watching Lost or staring blankly out the window. However, being alone forced me to face the parts of myself I didn’t like very much and led me to eventually change them (after I ran out of Lost episodes).

Everything will seem less fun. Drinking, drugs, sex, partying…whatever it is people do to suppress their anxieties and emotions will no longer provide the same sense of comfort. I stopped drinking entirely during my Saturn Return. Being in rooms full of people no longer distracted me from my own thoughts. Focusing on relationships to avoid my own problems proved disastrous. Finally, I stopped looking for distractions and got down to working on myself and my life.

You will have to give things up. Saturn Return is a time when it becomes necessary to leave behind anything in our lives that does not reflect who we are. This period reflects a transition from the safety and security of the past to the unknown possibilities of the future. The first response most people have is to cling to what is familiar and try to ignore the increasingly strong feelings pushing them to make changes. Don’t do that. Relationships, jobs, and situations will pass out of your life at this time. Let them go.

During my Saturn Return, I felt like I was destroying the structures in my life with no guarantee that the future would be any better. I was exhausted, overwhelmed, and not sure any of the choices I was making were the right ones. I felt older, wiser, and not necessarily happier. It’s hard to write about Saturn Return without sounding grim, but  I don’t want that to be what folks take away from this essay. Saturn’s influence is serious, sobering, and sometimes devastating, but it serves an important purpose.

Which brings me to my thirtieth birthday, which took place in August of last year. My Saturn Return was over, I lived in a new city, and had a new job, new home, and new projects. In hindsight, all the painful choices I had made along the way finally made sense. At 30, I’m happier than I have ever been, and can clearly see that the life I was following up until my Saturn Return had always been more about pleasing my family, friends, and teachers than about doing what I felt was worthwhile. I destroyed and recreated my entire world, and now I can see that I didn’t actually lose anything by doing so…

Coming Home to Bravery: Sarah James

Sarah James and I know each other from our college days. On the cusp of 30 herself, she has been an enthusiastic supporter of this project--even giving it a shout out on her fantastic blog Yum & Yuk. Sarah is currently a legal services attorney in Oregon.
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A year ago I was still reeling from having failed the MA Bar on my first go (by only two points, my pride requires me to tell you). I was working part time for the Census in Boston, going door-to-door bugging people for personal demographic information, and spending my downtime drinking.  My diet consisted of a rotation between Chinese food, frozen potato skins, and pizza. This was not how I imagined my first year after law school. Don’t get me wrong, there were some great things too – a supportive family, a loving boyfriend, wonderful friends (many of whom were sharing the same struggles as me), my health.  But I was broke, jobless, out of shape, uninsured, and pretty despondent about my future.

I am 3 months short of 30. 

When I hit 29 my best friend (the one I count on for everything, including keeping me up to date on my astrological forecast), sent me info about the “Saturn Return.”  The main thing I remember, the thing that has stuck with me, was something that explained your Saturn Return as a time in your life where, if you weren’t living in line with your core beliefs and values, your life would go into upheaval to get you re-aligned.  To me, this is what turning 30 is all about.

Last May, after an impulsive, in-my-underwear swim in Walden Pond and a powerful pang of longing for small town life, I casually called a friend in Oregon.  He told me about a job opening at legal services in the town where I grew up, at the organization I volunteered for in high school.  Within 24 hours, I applied, interviewed for, was offered, and accepted the position. A week later my boyfriend and I started the drive cross-country.

To summarize the 9 months since then, the thoughts I’ve had, the choices I’ve made, would be impossible without boring you to tears. But, in short: the first thing I did was quit drinking (a backlash against having spent much of the previous year in a bar). Living with my parents (temporarily!), having no money (legal services), and being sober (for the most part), my social life was….real quiet. I decided to take this extra time to work towards a long-term goal I never thought I would reach: completing a marathon and a half Ironman triathlon. I began running, for the first time in my life. My now-long-distance relationship ended, tearfully and sadly. During the day, I struggled to try to learn a job for which I’d received no training, working with clients who couldn’t afford to have me f*ck up. I fell in love with a woman who shared my name, and a few months later she broke my heart.

And then I began the celibacy quest. When people hear that I decided to be celibate for 6 months, they mainly just think about the sex aspect of it, which is understandable. But more than just not having sex, it’s meant taking a break from the relentless quest to get approval from other people, the endless search for someone who would make me feel like enough. And then one weekend I decided to go to church (the church I found by Googling “gay friendly churches Oregon” – a modern spiritual quest for sure), and this past week, after 7 months of attendance, I formally became a member, with the blessing of our lesbian minister.

There is so much more to say about all of this and I, obviously, could ramble forever. This past year has been an exercise in both stretching my boundaries and returning to a place in myself that feels like home, returning to the “me” I spent my 20s battling. And that’s what excites me so much about turning 30, and the coming decade – coming home to bravery.

Am I always this positive? Hell no. Every day I worry my ovaries are drying up, that I will be “alone forever,” that my savings account will never be sufficient enough to stop this constant anxiety, that I am failing at my job every day, that I will never live in the same place as all my scattered, wonderful friends. But if I could survive my 20's – that dark, scary, insecure, brittle, self-doubting time – I’m ready for the 30's. One year later, I live in a small Oregon town where I work as a legal services attorney. I live with two friends, two dogs, and my first garden. I’m training for my first marathon and triathlon. I don’t drink or do drugs. I cut out most processed foods. I’m celibate, church-going, and sugar-free. Yep.

James Generic: Life at 29

I first met James Generic on the Internet. I was setting up a book tour for an author that wanted to speak at the Wooden Shoe, Philadelphia venerable anarchist bookstore, and James had recently become an events-committee-of-one. We corresponded about the logistics of the event for a couple weeks and everything ended up going smoothly. Less than a year later, I moved to Philly from Northampton, MA and found myself being trained by James one Saturday night at the Shoe. Eventually I joined the events committee and have continued to enjoy working with him to bring great radical speakers to the South Street infoshop.

James is currently writing a book about the Wooden Shoe and blogs about Philly sports at Stadium Vagabonds. Without further adieu, here is the first submission to 360 Months...
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I feel kinda funny writing this, because it feels somewhat like writing an obituary. 30 is not old, just a milestone. You don't really have any more excuses. You're supposed to have your shit together at this point, be ready to move forward. I still have a year and a half before I turn 30, and it doesn't really concern me... Okay, maybe it does. Just a bit. I used to have my shit together. I certainly did. But the last year was a tough year. I thought that I had it together. A long term, decent paying job. I was married to the love of my life. I owned my rowhome. I had it made by most standards. I am well-known and generally well-liked, with just a few enemies made over the years (fuck 'em, anyway).

But things started to tumble, as I put more and more of my energy into organizing and volunteering. As the pressure constantly mounted, my marriage was the first to crack--to the tune of many tears and wrenching of the heart. They say that losing the love of your life to a breakup is almost worse than losing someone to death. I was a damn wreck for a long time, drowning in a great downward spiral like toilet water sucking down the hole of death. Then, in July, my boss hit me across the face, and I quit my job, walking away with unemployment benefits assured (since I quit with good cause). Those two combined to make my continued home ownership impossible, so my home is up for sale. I know, I know, boohoo. A lot of people my age never ever had those things in the first place. Like I said, the last year was my fall from grace. I had a nice writing project to do, but damn, writing has a lot more highs and lows than a 9-5er. It was a whole lot of adjustments.

So here I stand, at the crossroads. My 20's are nearly done. Somedays I hit the bottle to stay sane, trying to figure out how to get my shit together. One of my core values is that I am pretty reliable and dependable. I think I have maintained that basic core. That's really the last thing I have left. I have never given that up, even if I am notoriously flakey when showing to parties or big social events. I'll never leave you hanging if we have 1 on 1 hangouts planned, and I have very rarely failed in my political work with the Wooden Shoe collective or Solidarity.

A lot of people just get their start at 30. Like a lot of coaches or actors or writers or whatever. Then again, life is almost done at 30 if you're a football player, as a career. Its all perspective. My parents had me when they were in the early 30's. Oh shit... that's coming up, if I wanna reproduce. Something that my 20's taught me very well is that as much as you want to plan out your life, it doesn't quite work like that. You can't plan shit. Everything falls apart eventually. Flesh rots, as do everything that humans build, eventually. You can keep it going, but its a race against time. Eventually it fails. Eventually we die. This isn't a surrender, but just a recognition. You have to keep trying to swim upstream, because otherwise you'll drown, and just become another floater.

But you know what? What about 40? I kind of look forward to being the dirty old man at the bar who makes terrible jokes. Maybe to some of my friends in their early 20's or late teens, I already am that guy. Who knows though? As long as I can keep drinking beer, watching baseball, and staying involved in social movements for a better world, I think I'll generally be happy and content. Contentish, anyway. So I don't have a career right now. I was getting bored with libraries anyway. So I don't have marriage anymore, and god I miss her somedays, but maybe I'm better as a single guy. So I don't have a house anymore. Maybe it's better not to be tied down like that (says the guy who hates leaving Philadelphia.) Sure, I feel lost a lot, feeling out the days, but you gotta wander the desert before finding the land of milk and honey, donchya? Or drown in the Red Sea.

I can grow a full beard now. That's different than when I turned 20.