On aging

I have an on-going discussion with Shawn and other friends here as to how exactly devushky become babushky. For those of you not intimately familiar with post-Soviet life, a little explanation is in order. Directly translated, “devushka” means “girl” and “babushka” means “grandmother,” however, the everyday meanings of the words are much deeper than that. On the street, devushky are the young women wearing stiletto heels, unimaginably short skirts, and walking with an air of overconfidence. To the untrained American eye, they can appear to be “ladies of the night,” however this is not so — at least in the conventional sense. On the other end of the spectrum are babushky who usually appear to be older than time itself, dressed in the most awfully mismatched outfits, and can be found selling things on the street that they themselves have obtained for free (such as rotten apples or last week’s newspaper). Because of these extremes and the generalizations that go along with them, women in the middle of these groups age-wise tend to blend into the scenery until you find yourself pushing into one on the bus. And so it appears that women here must quickly fall from devushka-hood to babushka-hood.

But how? One theory is that there is a day in every devushka’s life when she wakes up and is suddenly, tragically, a babushka. Her stiletto thigh-high boots have been replaced with ankle-high nylons and plastic house slippers; her breasts have shifted much too close to her waist; her Louis Vuitton handbag is now a plastic shopping bag filled with miscellaneous garbage; and, of course, her overly-dyed bleach-blonde hair is now back to its natural brown, streaked with grey, and tucked in a trademark babushka scarf.

I bring this up because I was a little worried that today would be that day for me — I am now (*gulp*) 30-years-old. Granted, I would not call myself a devushka — in Ukrainian terms, I tend to dress more like a middle-aged mother of three (that is to say, sensibly) — so I didn’t expect my downfall to be quite as extreme, but I have been feeling as of late that this birthday is more than just a number. I know, I know, I’ve always said that I wouldn’t be one of those people who gets all freaked out about turning 30, but now it’s here and it’s a little worrisome. Not that I feel any older, really, it’s just that I thought I would have things a little more figured out by now. That I would “have my shit together” as they say. And let me tell you, mine is all over the place.

This last year has been a pretty rough one for me. It goes well beyond culture shock and into the realm of having to do some serious work re-defining myself. Not an easy thing. But I’m getting there — I’m feeling better about who I am, the decisions I make, and where (literally and figuratively) that takes me. I feel like I still have a long way to go, but since I didn’t get things together for this milestone, now I have nothing but time until the next one. I’m sure I’ll have it all figured out by then…right?