This is an opinion piece in Dagens Nyheter. The author is responsible for the opinions in the article.
“Can you believe we’re turning thirty this year?” My friend Saga sits in sweatpants and prepares a pair of jeans. They’re five sizes too big and she’s worn them so often that the only thing holding them together at the back is the crotch. Now she patiently joins the large holes together with a needle and thread.
How much money she has varies from month to month; If she sells a work of art, she gets a share, but if the pass with the delivery person is bad, it can be tight.
She was just telling me about her latest situation. The mattress on the bed in the first room is empty because the cat peed on the sheets last night, but Saga is in a good mood.
We eat fuet from it their handmade bowls and listen to André 3000’s bizarre flute album. We are happy with our lives. Still, Saga wonders aloud if something needs to change now that old age is approaching.
Where should a woman be when she turns thirty?
If you ask the universities, you should get an education, if you ask the job market, you should get there as soon as possible (even your wallet agrees). If you ask your mother, she will say something that is typical of a mother.
If you ask the manosphere, whose presence is increasingly noticeable on various Internet platforms, you can immediately throw in the towel because you have passed your sell-by date and are becoming ugly or at least corrupt (this can be a little sad for a brief moment, before you consider that this reactionary movement is wrong and therefore you must not care what it “thinks”).
In other news, man can come across: being a housewife is as good a job as anything else – but no, you should never become financially dependent on someone else – but money is not everything, you should also strive for inner personal development through education.
Anyone who is a little older laughs indulgently at this because you are still so young, still very young, just wait
Suddenly you have both pimples and the beginnings of a worry line. You want to drink beer every Wednesday, but you get tired very early and have to get home before twelve. You have uncomfortable shoes and therefore pain in your knees. People think about student debt. You feel flattered when Systembolaget asks for ID. Until then.
And a debate article appeared in DN that proclaims that if you’re thinking about having children, you should probably start having children. But those who are a little older laugh it off indulgently because they are you anyway so youngstill very young, just wait.
Polar Saga holds She holds up her mended jeans in front of her and sighs at the unavailable men she seems to be attracted to. Your cat is snoring, stretched out on the bare mattress. Saga says she will ask for time off from her job so she can invest in art again.
Sometimes it happens that she calls me and is sad, thinks she can’t cope, the world seems to be collapsing around her. But I have been with her for half her life and over time things have worked out well for both her and me. It just keeps getting better. It shouldn’t end at thirty.
Read more texts by Ester Berg in the DN culture.
