The Artist D Sounding Off — Age is a Numbers Thing

The Artist D

Birth, death, born, died, existence and extinction … Sometimes it’s all there is. Back in the day before becoming the Internet’s First Superstar I was a historian. I was a family historian to be exact. Over the course of many years I charted thousands of branches on family trees. While I found the hunt of the human story (the his or her story) interesting I never got into the true nature of the beast. That being the recording of boring data such as birth and death dates. While many will tell you they enjoy spending two weeks charting dates in a cemetery I still say it’s pretty boring. One thing did stand out throughout that career and that was a disturbing pattern.

I noticed that an extremely high number of people throughout history died on or near their birth date. I saw it way too many times to count and many fellow historians always admitted they saw a pattern too. It was like humans were suddenly a carton of eggs on the shelf. Package born on and will expire exactly so many years after birth. Every package is unique but will expire around a certain time for some reason. I don’t believe in much but it is something I to this day still believe to be true. This fact only increased my paranoia of death and gave me even more reason to dislike birthdays. There’s nothing like spending the end of July, all of August and half of September hoping to make it out of “the zone.”

The zone was what I called the area around the person’s birthday that they were most likely to die. Now don’t get me wrong, a lot of people die at random times. There are a lot of people out there and dying near your birthday is probably as probable as dying six months after. As they say, what was once seen cannot be unseen and I’m convinced the natural expiration date is a true thing. What’s worse is that people who die around their birthday die of natural causes, perhaps the worst way to go. (But that’s another article.)

In my pursuit to avoid death I began making up my age, not for vanity reasons but I felt that if I didn’t recognize my actual ticking clock I may have less of a possibility of early expiration. I was 17 years old from the time I was 15. I was 18 years old from the time I was 17 to 20 and I was 23 for longer than I can count. I also faked my age because I was like any teenager and quite sick of constantly being held back by a number. After all I was a teenage historian, something that was considered an “old person” business that was no place for a kid.

As I went along in this charade of age the fear became less of a fear the older I got, but it taught me an interesting lesson. Age really is just a number. When I said I was 18 I felt 18 and people treated me like I was 18. When I was 23 I was treated the way I always wanted to be treated. That explains why when one day I decided to say I was 27 I changed my mind after a few months. The way 27 felt was not comfortable at all. The way people treat 27 is very different from 23. It is interesting to note that a lot of this time I truly believed I was the age I said I was and the psychological nature of it really did have a profound effect. In fact when I had to think of my “real age” I found myself extremely confused and honestly not so sure about it.

I don’t think I can hide from death anymore. I’m pretty sure death will find me no matter what age I say I am or how much I cover up my date of birth. After all, I did believe it was a built in expiration date all of that time I did what I did. Yet I still am the number I prefer to be. Never the exact number I am and as I get older I find myself insisting I am younger. This may be the only part of my idea that could be a truth. You are as old as you feel. If there’s anything I’ve noticed it’s that when people feel old, they act old and are old. No matter what their age may be! Meanwhile the young-acting remain pretty damned young, if not by looks then by character.

I have no interest in being a number dictated by society’s system of measure. Just like I don’t wish to be forced to use a name I was given without choice. Much like I refuse to be a gender that they say I am. Now you may know how I feel.

So, for this birthday I will celebrate happily that I’m still alive and I’m able to be whatever I want to be, whenever I want to be.  I’ll remain 23 for as long as I feel like it and maybe someday I’ll be “almost 30” again. I tried that one for awhile and it was pretty good too. While the culture tries to snap us down at every facet of our selves we have the right to live in our own heads, being who we want to be. We may have to admit from time to time. Conformity is needed for credit card applications and such things, but at the end of the day we’re the gender we know we are with the name we always dreamt of having and the age we feel.

If you can change names, gender, size, color, style and your mind then you can change your age. Why live in any box at any time ever? It’s never made sense to me.  It’s not silly and it’s not foolish. It just is.

Just be.

The Artist D is executive editor of Fourculture Magazine. He is also unearthing the underground as host of The Fabulous D Show every Sunday night at 7 PM EST at TheArtistD.com.

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Category: Transgender Body & Soul, Transgender Opinion