The thing about Tumblr that probably makes me saddest is the underlying assumption that women past a certain age (which seems to be about 25?) stop having any sort of outside interests beyond family/career/kids. Like, y’all are always so shocked that grown women have lives and can fangirl as hard as we did as teenagers.
It makes me sad not because it makes me feel old (although it does), but because these younger women are constricting their own lives–they fully expect that this will happen to them someday. Y’all deserve better. Y’all deserve to EXPECT better.
And worse than that, the idea that there’s something WRONG with a grown woman who has other interests.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
One of the biggest things I realized growing up?
It doesn’t happen.
You expect somehow you will change when you are finally An Adult™. You’ll stop enjoying the things you enjoy now for something more “adult” or “mature.” You’ll FEEL like an adult and not like a child anymore. You’ll feel comfortable and secure and not scared and unsure and confused. You expect you will feel like you have your shit together.
But I can tell you that it doesn’t happen. You’ll still feel like the “you” you were at 15 or 17 or 19.
You just have these…things to deal with. Like rent. And insurance.
You have a job either because a) you like it or b) it keeps the lights and internet on.
You’ll look up from fangirling one day and realize “Shit. I am twenty eight years old. That’s almost 30!” Or maybe it will be that you look down at the small child clasped around your legs and realize “That is my child. I have a child. A human being child.” Or maybe it will be that you have to negotiate your budget around con tickets AND a mortgage payment.
Growing up isn’t a thing that happens.
It’s a realization that it doesn’t happen.
Holy shit, y’all. There are some AMAZING responses to this post. Yes, everything alwayshometomarvel says. All that.
Feeling like I wasn’t ‘adult’ enough fucked me up for years. I would cry at night and feel like a total piece of shit because I was married with a kid, and yet I still did ‘not adult’ things–I played MMOs, I cosplayed and went to conventions, I drew fan art and wrote fan fic. I kept waiting for the day that I would wake up and realize that what I really needed to be doing was the laundry, cleaning the house, making dinner every night, etc. Basically, be the ‘perfect’ wife and mother.
And somewhere between then and now, I somehow managed to tell myself…fuck it. I AM an adult. I go to work every day and pay the bills and help raise my son and take care of the house. I do legit adult things. AND I play MMOs, go to conventions, and participate in fandom. And THAT’S OKAY. I’m 32 years old now and finally at peace with that part of myself. (Having a supportive husband and kid doesn’t hurt either!)
All of this is such truth. Believing these things about growing up, and especially about being over 25? Really made it hard for me when I turned 30.
I was literally suicidal on my 30th birthday. I spent the whole day in tears. I felt like I had died and my life was now worthless and small and never going to be hopeful or full of promise or fun again. I felt like killing myself on my birthday because I bought into this lie that somewhere after your mid-twenties, you diminish as a woman because the only thing that made you alive and shiny was your youth.
I’m 31 now and I’m done with that shit. I’m over it. I don’t care if you think I’m too old for something. If I’m an old lady in Tumblr terms, then I’m past the legal age where I’m obligated to care what you think.
So, I’m telling you girls out there right now who are in your teens and twenties, get rid of this idea of what older women are “supposed” to look like. Get rid of this idea that “soccer moms” don’t play video games or that all women over 25 should be married and contemplating kids. Get rid of the idea that fanfic and fandom and fun things are for “kids.”
Mostly, get rid of this notion that the only thing really valuable about you is your youth. Youth is part of life, but it’s not the most valuable or beautiful or exciting time of your life. I like my life at 30 about 1000% than I did at 15, 18, 20, even 25.
on her deathbed, my grandmother pulled my mom close to her and said, “i don’t feel old. i don’t know how i’m supposed to feel. but inside, i still feel seventeen.” when I was a teenager, I used to think that story was sad; sad and strange somehow, like she’d been frozen in time. but now that i am a woman in my thirties, I understand. I understand her. I am a grown woman in the ways that matter. I listen to myself more, trust my experience more. but inside? I still feel the joy and rage and mess; I am still changing. we’re not frozen in time. we are just still growing.
the more we acknowledge that modern “adulthood” is largely a concept designed to sell vacuums and sedans, and not an arbitrary total overhaul of self at age 35, the more we can admit our ongoing capacity– no, our ongoing NEED for play and playfulness and exploration. those are childish things we should never have to put away.
Yes.
Tag: aging
Anon who asked about elf ages- elves reach maturity after 50 and stop aging at 100. At that point they are physically the equivalent of a human 25-year-old (more or less), but there isn’t any chronological equivalent. BUT, there’s a theory that 144 elven years = 1 human year after the elf hits 100. In that case Tauriel, for example, who is above 600, would technically be in her early 30s, though in comparison to older elves it could be considered as young as the early 20s. (contd.)
(contd.) The elf’s lineage also plays a part. Like if you take Elrond, who is a Peredhel, he would physically look older than a full-blood elf like Galadriel even though she is much older in years. The Thranduilion boys would therefore all look roughly the same age (25-27) and the difference would lie in how careworn/weary they look rather than actual physical signs of aging, if that makes sense. Chronologically though, it isn’t possible to equate elven age with human age. Hope this helped! 🙂
Nonnie – look at this! Thank you so much, Rippy, you’re a gold-plated pal! *hugs*
Ooooh, what about elven aging?
Hey Nonnie!
Again, LOTS is known about Elves – Tolkien loved his Elves OH SO VERY MUCH, after all!
Here’s a good run-down on Elven aging and the life-cycle of an Elf 🙂
Summarised, though, it goes like this:
– Elves have a gestation period of around 1 year.
– They celebrate their conception day, rather than their birthday (which must raise awkward questions for their parents, I assume…)
– They look around 7 years old (compared to a human child) when they are in fact 20 years old.
– Their minds, however, develop VERY quickly. So, we’re talking childlike geniuses here, I suppose?
– Puberty is anywhere between 50-100.
– They have however reached adult height at 50, so I assume their puberty is mostly filling-out/broadening etc.
– They’re an adult at 100.
– They live forever, huzzah! Unless killed/heartbroken/silmarils.
– They appear to have ‘cycles of life’ – it’s unclear what is meant by this, but it is said that in an Elf’s third cycle of life, they can grow a beard. (HEY CIRDAN, NICE FACIAL FUZZ)
Hi! I just wanted to ask, since you’ve done a lot on dwarven aging, what do you think about hobbit aging?
Hey there! Lovely to hear from you!
Luckily, there’s HEAPS of info here. Tolkien loved his fussy little Hobbitses, and gave them plenty of attention (unlike Dwarves, I am not bitter I am bitter). So all this here? Is canon.
Hobbits age slowly, in comparison to Men. They come of age at 33 years old.
The period of their twenties is a wild and heady, irresponsible sort of time, known as the ‘tweens.’
For reference, during LOTR? Pippin is 29. (Yes, he’s not even an adult!!!) Frodo was meant to be a particularly rambunctious tween, who loved to steal Farmer Maggot’s mushrooms.
50 is literally their middle-age, as the average Hobbit’s lifespan is around 100 years old.
Bilbo is a VERY exceptional hobbit. He says at one point that his aim is to live longer than the Old Took, his grandfather Gerontius, who made it to 130 – and thanks to the Ring (and probably his own innate stubbornness) he made it to 131, before leaving for Aman where he would have eventually passed away.
how do you think dwarven aging works? like–are they babies for the same amount of time as men and then age slower like elves do? do they reach physical maturity before they come of age? I’m trying to wrap my head around age equivalents and it’s not exactly working. especially when I try to think of Dain at Azanulbizar.
Hey Nonnie!
Hoo boy, I have written a LOT on this in the past: here’s some of my ramblings, here’s some more, and some more, and some more, and some more. There’s nothing really definitive in canon, and what there is is a little contradictory.
Basically, it boils down to this:
– We know that around 40-45, a Dwarf would be physically grown – or close. (Dain was 32 at Azanulbizar, and Frerin was 48…)
– However, Gimli is too young to join the Quest for Erebor, and he was 62.
– This suggests that they are bodily mature far earlier than they come of age?
– Emotional maturation generally continues for a longer period of time than physical maturation, at least in humans.
– Kili is 77 at the time of the Quest, and he is the youngest.
– With all this taken into account, I headcanon that Dwarves ‘come of age’ at 70 years old. They’d grow quite quickly – Wee Thorin is 37, from memory, and he is nearly as tall as Gimli… though he is the equivalent of 12 years old emotionally and intellectually.
(believe me, I teach 12 year olds WAY taller than me.)
Then they’d enjoy a long adulthood, very resistant to change and age and disease (Mahal made ‘em hardy, after all!)… before they crumbled comparatively swiftly at the end of their lifespan.
Okay, I have yet to find a reliable metric for this: how much *is* twenty years for a dwarf? I know Fíli and Kíli think Gimrís is cute when she’s, what, fifty? Implying that a gap of thirty-odd years isn’t that big? Idk, I’m just confused about the aging rate of fantasy creatures, don’t mind me.
IDK, I think we’re all confused Nonnie!
20 years for Dwarves, well, that’s not such a big gap… for an adult. Think of differences in our own world. A five year gap between partners is nothing when they’re both in their thirties. It is HUGE when they are in their teens. So a twenty-year age difference means a lot more to Dwarven children than it would to Dwarven adults. Thus the way Dain considers Frerin and Thorin.
Dwalin is five years younger than Dain, heheheh. I always knew that Mohawk was the sincerest form of flattery
IDK, there’s never been anything definitive on Dwarf-to-human comparative aging. I can only tell you what I have made up, Nonnie. I have written some stuff before on Dwarf aging. Here are all my ramblings all together! I warn you, there’s nothing conclusive that I’ve ever found. Tolkien never created a real comparative chart.
Anyway, I am treating the Dwarves as though they a) come of age at 70. b) enjoy a very, very long period of adulthood without deterioration, and c) grow both stiffer and more brittle towards the end of their lives, though they usually have a vigorous old age, before, d) they’d crumble all at once, a couple of years before death.
Hope that helps with the confusion!
Aw Yiss 