Dishing biological deadlines with Emily Clanton – Age is Just a Number

Today on the Age is Just a Number blog series, I’m very pleased to welcome Emily Clanton, Social Media Manager for Booktrope and self-proclaimed “social media geek.” Emily works tirelessly to promote Booktrope authors and so I am thrilled to turn the spotlight on her. Emily talks, not about a specific age, but about those pesky biological deadlines.

Biological Deadlines and the Future

As I cruise along in the summer time of my life, I really can’t say that I have a particular age that I’m afraid of reaching. I know. It seems a bit counter-intuitive for a lady (who had a birthday at the beginning of the month) to write something like that, but it’s true. Instead the source of my apprehension is reconciling the idea of hard biological deadlines that conflict with my chronological life plan.

Growing up as the eldest child in my family I wasn’t allowed to do very much. Even when I was old enough to get a job and save money for things like concert tickets, I wasn’t allowed to go. So, for me, college was when I was really able to hone my skills of goal setting and working to achieve these goals. For example, I graduated debt-free with a degree in art, and I had a job in Japan lined up within a few months of graduation.

Once I began to mentally sketch out plans for the end of my 20’s and into my 30’s, however, I stumbled into an issue that I had never seriously considered before: having children.

After hearing it described by friends, I don’t think this is my biological clock doing the thinking – at least, not yet. But the abstract idea of a baby isn’t far from my mind these days. When my husband and I discuss the house we want in the near future, it has to have enough space for our creative passions – visual art and music – as well as room for kids. Thinking about turning my art into a business, I mentally bullet list how much time I would need to carve out of a day away from the demands of these youngins who don’t even exist yet!

Human beings can do just about anything that they set their minds to at almost any age. Just as you can skydive at 90, you could play beautiful violin music at 10. That’s why my stomach hurts just a little bit when I think about the future. I know my husband and I are problem solvers and will figure things out when the time comes, but, in the meantime, having this unseen biological checkered flag flapping somewhere in the distance is more than a little stressful. Thank goodness for books, Dr. Mario on the Wii, and white wine!

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Emily is a book-loving social media geek and creative type based in Atlanta, Georgia. She is the Social Media Manager for Booktrope and oversees the curation of the company’s social media accounts, its blog, and newsletter. A graduate of the Lamar Dodd School of Art at the University of Georgia, Emily enjoys painting, cooking (and eating) delicious things and the sudoku-esque challenge of crafting the perfect tweet.

Learn more about Emily’s current art project, Ratios and Recipes, wherein she is researching the best ways to make sustainable, water-based paints from natural pigments: http://ratiosandrecipes.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/EC_Clanton
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RatiosAndRecipes
Coming soon:

How Do You Know? – December 2nd.

What if you were approaching the end of your thirties and all of the life milestones you took for granted in your youth suddenly seemed out of reach?
On the eve of her thirty-ninth birthday, Maggie Piper doesn’t look, act, or feel much different than she did at twenty-nine, but with her fortieth birthday speeding towards her like a freight train, she wonders if she should. The fear of a slowing metabolism, wrinkling of her skin, and the ticking of her biological clock leaves Maggie torn between a desire to settle down like most of her similarly-aged peers and concern that all is not perfect in her existing relationship. When a spontaneous request for a temporary “break” from her live-in boyfriend results in a “break-up,” Maggie finds herself single once again and only twelve months from the big 4.0. In the profound yet bumpy year that follows, Maggie will learn, sometimes painfully, that life doesn’t always happen on a schedule, there are no deadlines in love, and age really is just a number.

6 Comments

  1. meredithgschorr on November 20, 2014 at 10:51 am

    Cheers to white wine! Thank you so much for participating in my blog series and for all you do.

    • Emily Clanton on November 20, 2014 at 8:46 pm

      Thanks for having me, Meredith. This was fun! 🙂

  2. Mary Rowen on November 20, 2014 at 11:02 am

    Love this post, Emily! Especially the line, “Human beings can do almost anything they set their minds to at almost any age.”

    • Emily Clanton on November 20, 2014 at 8:48 pm

      I’ve personally known people to do amazing things outside of “normal” age ranges, Mary. So I totally know it’s true!

  3. Patricia Mann on November 21, 2014 at 4:59 pm

    Great post, Emily! Nice to get to know a bit about the woman behind the social media – thanks for all you do for us authors and the entire Booktrope family! I can understand the pressure you feel, I was there too. But if you trust your intuition and do what feels right for you and your husband (ignoring all that annoying well-meaning advice!) I’m sure everything will fall into place as it should.

  4. Hilary on November 22, 2014 at 8:53 am

    Great post! I love the line about figuring it all out when the time comes. That is so true.

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