Coming of Age

Usually coming of age means a landmark birthdate, like the 15-year old quinceañera for Spanish girls to become women. (Spoiler: There’s one in the Chinese culture at 15 as well, but instead of a giant party, it’s a special bath in rose water, a silkie chicken, and then a small party. Also, a lot of white.)

Or maybe the 16-year old in the United States, where in most states, teens can get their drivers’ licenses and be as free as whatever car they or their parents can get them. This is never really quite as freeing as kids are led to believe – the car maintenance costs, insurance, and gas result in simply driving back and forth to work. To this day, my sister who is well into her twenties does not drive. Instead, I drive for her.

Maybe it’s 18, which in the United States, makes you an adult. It’s really dependent on the family, but to many parents here, that means the kid is out. Not really my idea of a great birthday, but to each their own.

It can also be 21, which in the United States is legal drinking age (and now, legal smoking age – woohoo, lung cancer and diabetes). Not that that matters all that much, kids can always get their hands on alcohol through their parents, friends, or that weird homeless guy they slip some extra money to get cheap beer.

For me, coming of age happened a couple of times. I’m not all that old just yet, but I definitely skipped 15, 16, 18, and 21. How exactly? Well, because I was diagnosed with diabetes at 6, that pretty much made me an adult and having to both inject myself multiple times a day and navigate our screwed up healthcare system requires a level of maturity and determination most kids don’t have at 15, 16, or 18. Also, I finished high school at 16, and went off on my own(ish) for college. My 21st birthday was well into my first scientific career position, and after I had had several networking drinks in bars at conferences.

Since I blew through everything so fast, I skipped over some of those developmental experiences of questionable value like having roommates, student loan debt, and crappy fast food or retail jobs. My real coming of age was when I was 25. By 25, I had been promoted to the maximum I could be with my credentials, owned a family home, and started my PhD part-time while I was working. I was also engaged to a service member who was stationed very far away. In retrospect, the relationship moved too fast, was very one-sided, and ingenuine. However, this precarious balance set me up very well to take a huge tumble in 2019.

Now, 2019 was rough for everyone. In late March, my engagement ended with my then fiancé basically asking me to give up everything I had been working for – my career, my PhD, house, family, and friends to move there. This was completely contrary to any logical plan we had made before and I respectfully declined. My declination was apparently part of his emotional affair and our relationship ended. (Spoiler: he got married to the woman he dated before me within about 3-4 months, whom he had heavily disparaged during our relationship.) More than 3 years removed from that heartbreak, I am so happy I dodged that bullet.

Not two weeks after fiasco, and while I was still crying and forcing myself to go to work and school when I didn’t feel good about myself, my boss abruptly departed. Since it was a small department, there was no indication what would happen to each of us – if the department would be shut down and we’d all be let go, how the department would continue, etc. This spurred far more for me – since my PhD was sponsored by my company and meant to be performed at the company, that stopped and I had to spread myself more into school, which I was not doing well in due to all the loss. Losing my job also mean losing my house.

I crumbled.

Things slowly got better, but also were not good for a long, long time. I kept my job, and my house, and continued my PhD. However, since I was not able to perform my research at work, I was working essentially two jobs. I felt insane. I sold the house during COVID, which helped some but didn’t fix everything. My workplace changed, especially with their strategies. I no longer fit there.

It took 2-3 years but I’m no longer the person I was then. I’ll never be in such a precarious position. Since I went through those two traumas so close together, which was followed by other traumas in July and September, and then COVID, I’m still on my pathway to healing. I have help. I left my job and am working on my PhD full-time. It took a while to build myself back up.

The biggest things I learnt and am learning are to love myself, balance my life, and to keep pursuing my dreams relentlessly.