Today is the Day I Grew Up.

It seems with every passing year, there are a few stretches of 24 hours where I mutter that to myself under my breath, or allow its veribage float and flutter maniacally in my mind for a brief while, only to be forced out by reconciling my desire to not be old with not actually being old. There was the day I graduated high school, then, the day an airplane–then another–hit the Twin Towers and I watched a city that was once my urban backyard crumble with a vulnerability I never mentally allowed it to have…

…there was the day I got my first real job, the day I got my first solo apartment, and the day I moved back in with roommates. The days of frantic calls from home and hospitals leading up to the day my father died. The traumatic birth of my son, when I lie on a hospital bed, seconds after giving birth, trying to tell myself my son died, just to prepare myself for the absolute worst after the doctors took him from me and tried to get him to breathe on his own (it took over 36 hours for that to happen.) The day my son first called me mommy and not “dada!” (well, it was more like “mommy mommy mommy.”) The day I saw my first (ok, eighth) grey hair and decided I wouldn’t pluck it from my head.

But none of those experiences aged me so permanently as living through an–actual–global pandemic. With so many humans having to life through horrific wars, this pandemic, which kills under 1% of its victims in most regions, is a “baby war.” Even those who feel the impacts of it more acutely, in job losses or crippling illness, are still unlikely to die from it. More will know someone who passes from the disease when all is said and done, but for a horrible pandemic, it, well, it could be a lot more horrible.

Still–as a mother, as a 36 year old woman less than four years away from turning 40–as a worker who is trying to balance working from home without childcare and still being a mother and still having some semblance of sanity AND managing burning waves of anxiety that rip me apart from my inside until I’m left hollow and shaken–I feel–old. I feel my age. I feel those 36 years of knowing exactly what all this is. Of watching people ignoring health official recommendations. Of seeing how in our wealthy country we somehow do not have the proper protections for our vulnerable healthcare workers and EMTs on the front lines. Of watching democracy fall apart because people would rather believe whatever it is they want to believe based on what makes them feel safe, rather than think for themselves. Of watching foreign powers infiltrate our social media and deliver a constant feed of Fake News to further terrorize our democracy into a shadow of its former self.

I grew up, because I know too much, and pay too much attention to all of it. I envy those who find comfort in conspiracy theories and/or religion. I see my life ahead of me, however long that is, of a clear next phase of my reality. I’m not a “young–carefree–mom.” I’m a mother who worries and wonders what will come of our country and our world. It’s not just this pandemic. The pandemic brought to the forefront what is already going on and shone a bright light on rapidly rising inequality and wealth distribution. It shows those of us who care to look that our nation is fractured, possibly past the point of return, though it will take a while for it to crumble. It is, perhaps, the beginning of the fall of the American empire–which is maybe not a horrible thing for the history books, but not so great as a citizen. I question what that means and look to foreign political leaders who are using this situation to consolidate power and take on authoritarian rule overnight.

Growing up means seeing what’s there. The cracks. Seeing all of the cracks in the foundation of our society and being forced to accept that there is nothing to do to avoid its collapse. And, as history tells us, societies must collapse and be reborn in some other model. And here I sit, just a 36 year old woman, a mother, an employee, a half-decent friend, a someone, a no one, just watching the fantastical stability of society slowly, quickly, and again slowly combust, right before my very eyes.

Today is the day I grew up. And this time, I’m aging at full speed, with society etching worry lines into my forehead, and painting dark circles of sleepless nights under my eyes.