We Are Like Trees

Fall tree in the author’s New Jersey neighborhood, 2023.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: This essay was originally written in 2015.

I was dancing in the hall with my coworkers at the end of the day, when reality hit: “I’m THIRTY years old!” I said as I did another jig of joy at the reminder. I had been 30 for at least six months by that point, but I paused my antics for a fleeting moment of reflection. 

“Thirty! What a cool number! So grown up! A new decade!”

I was also confused. I didn’t “feel” 30. How a particular age is “supposed” to feel, I don’t know, but I turned to face the coworker I had just been laughing with and said, “I feel like I am many ages at once, I feel 20 and 5, simultaneously.” My 34-year-old coworker nodded in agreement and said she could identify with that notion, which is probably why we get along so well.

The 10-, 19-, and 21-year-old versions of myself wanted drastically different things from life compared to the 30-year-old version. This permutation of self feels more free, more independent, and at times, much goofier. At the same time, my 30-year-old self is more world weary and skeptical. As a child, I was a responsible person, but as an adult, I wear a healthier version of responsibility: caring about the things that actually matter to my own life, and, while I still care about the well-being of other people, I feel less responsible to be the solution to everyone else’s problems.

In other words, I thank you to live your own damn life, and I’ll live mine.

My 30-year-old self also curses a lot more. I can hear the 15-year-old me gasping in shock.

As a teenager, when I imagined my future, I expected an early marriage, many children, and never even dreamed of a college degree. I am bemused at the way my path unfolded. Not only did I procure a BA degree in creative writing with a minor in equine science of all things, but I am still single. I live on my own in a rough downtown St. Louis neighborhood (complete with crumbling and boarded up buildings) and take public transportation like a pro. I work in a world-class research university in an extremely dirty, stinky, hard labor job utilizing my animal science degree, but not remotely in the manner I intended. At 23, it dawned on me that I don’t in fact want to have kids if I ever do get married, but the 16-year-old me in a conservative church never knew she even had that choice. At this point, I feel relieved and settled in my decision and I imagine a million other ways I can spend my limited time, resources, and energy to improve the world.

I had trouble communicating how I felt about the unfolding years which grew me into the present person, but a friend shared with me a beautiful metaphor. She spoke about a tree: It starts out as a seed and as it grows each year, rings are added inside the trunk. With those rings, we can determine the age of a tree, and see in which years the tree experienced a forest fire, drought, or abundance. We look at the outside of a tree and see the bark, branches, and leaves in all their glory, but the former versions of tree and its experiences are still part of that tree, still visible in the knots and curvatures of the trunk and are integral to creating the form we see in the present.

Envisioning the tree has alleviated an intermittent sense of shame I felt for not meeting certain common life milestones. In many ways I am unrecognizable from some of the smaller inner rings of my former self, but I wouldn’t be as I am now without that part adding to the person I am today. 

We are like trees.  Even the same type of trees growing in the same yard do not bend and curve the same way. Similarly, we complex humans have our plethora of personalities, backgrounds, cultures, pain and joys, so we should not expect to exhibit the identical pattern of growth. The unique days and years of your life are like the inner rings of a tree. Each ring tells a story of your journey and contributes to shaping the current form of your mind and body. 

Keep growing, FRAGILE HUMAN!