I think it was Katie who coined the term “scary age” – as in, “26 is my scary age.” It must have been sometime directly after graduation when we took to assigning maxims to everything about post-grad life. Like – “I’ll know it’s really over when I can’t go out three nights in a row” (check) or “the first time I mistakenly make-out with someone who’s still in college, I’m going to lose it” (double check). The scary age thing fit in among those conversations, aka all conversations. I’ve always hated the concept but probably because it – like that fucking biological clock – is a reality.

Scary age is hard to pin-point. Says Katie, “it’s the point at which I feel like I really have to get my life together – like every decision from here on out has to be really deliberate towards some kind of end life happiness.” Says Nora, “25.”

To me it’s like from zero to scary age is all that stuff in your E! True Hollywood Story that comes before the deep, scary-man voiceover says, “and then…just after her 20-blank-th birthday…it all _____________ (came together/fell apart/made sense/came out)” – your goal is to make it so there’s light and happy, not dark and terrifying music in the background – color pictures of you holding awards and not black and whites of you holding empty bottles.

Broad terms – our scary age is the year we freak out over where we’ve been, where we’re going, and how it rates. In our minds we want all the pieces of our Sim Life lined up and ready to go by X date of X year – certain things should be built, other things should be in queue for building, and everything else should be sitting in our Sim Life dashboard, awaiting proper placement on the grid. 25, 26, 27, 28 – doesn’t matter. We lock it in and there it sits, waiting to arrive like some whole-life SAT except you write all the questions and all the answers and somehow still don’t think you’ll get one right. The markers you hit or miss are part your own invention, part societal pressure. It’s your goal to be published by 29. It’s societies fault that most people are married by 27. The details don’t matter. It’s that unfortunate fact that you only live once, and by X age you want to feel like you’re doing it right.

I don’t know if there’s a correlation between someone’s scary-age and their general personality. I’d think the more focused the least scared, but it could be that focus leads to goals, which lead to failures and thus freak outs. Maybe it’s the less directed, the more adaptable, so the less consumed with benchmarks, and thus the better off? I’m told there are people who really do believe age is just a number, but I’ve decided not to believe that because it makes me feel better about myself. I admit that I’ve yet to hear a male use the term scary age, but maybe that’s just because it, like that’s such a nightmare or I’m in a funk, just doesn’t come out of (straight) male mouths.

Overdramatics aside (for this paragraph) – life stages are marked by numbers. At those numbers we hope to hit goals, make progress, and feel correct in this world – like our life has a thesis statement, and we’re following it.

Today I turned some people’s scary age – 25. Quarter of a century. Half way to 50. Closer to 40 than from it. An official renter of cars.

I’m safe because it’s not my scary age. Mine was 26, but now it’s 28 on account of inflation and my dating record.

25 though still holds a certain weight in my head – like this marker of actual adulthood signifying the end of getting away with blatant immaturity (in public). I feel like at 25 I have to sit myself down and say, “Okay, where are we are? Oats, sewn; money, squandered; gateway drugs, tried; slippery sloap through gateway, avoided; and metaphoric notches in (twin) bedposts, carved. Good work, now stop blacking out and start saving money.” It’s like from here on out I don’t have to move forward in one, focused direction, but I can’t blatantly move backward. I’ve made some solid ground and lived a life of which 80% could be shared with my parents; now my life’s purpose is to not fuck it up. 25, the year I do as I say and not as I want.

For now I’m three years from scary and feeling like I’ve finally arrived at the age I’ve been dressing for since pre-school. Who knows, maybe by the time I approach my scary age inflation will push it from 28 to 30. Or maybe I’ll just actually accomplish all I’ve hoped for and be fully set on everything else I want exactly three years from this day.

Wish me luck.