Saturday I turn thirty, and my pose is 'not approaching it with dread'. That's my little contrarian streak showing, because you're supposed to approach it with dread.
Anyone over thirty will tell me I'm still young, and I buy that. If I can hope to live long, and if I value my older years rather than expecting diminishing returns from them, then I am indeed young at thirty. I feel pretty old to be young. Thirty years is a hell of a long time, just objectively. To get to live that long and still be technically young is a pretty neat trick. I know a few things by now, and I have some road ahead to apply them.
But when I turn fifty, I don't want to hear some bullshit about how I'm still young. I won't be--and what's wrong with that? What's wrong with being, in my thirties, at what Updike called "the midpoint," in full bloom rather than just a rosy bud full of potential? Most people seem to prefer bud status. Maybe it's scary to be smack in the middle of life. Easier to dream on what we might be in the future than admit the future has arrived. But unambiguous adulthood could be a good thing. No more school and throat-clearing. Now I play for keeps.
I started thinking of myself as 'about thirty' when I was twenty-eight and a half. That was my attempt to avoid surprise, one of three major factors behind Decade Dread. (Followed by fear of mortality and life dissatisfaction. This according to my research. My research was inferential, meaning I didn't look any stuff up; I just thought real hard.)
The Precor at Gold's thinks I've been thirty for quite some time. (And bless that Precor for being as forthright about these matters as humans wish we could be.) In the leadup, I have wanted to remind myself of both the youthful qualities I want to keep and the mature qualities I wish to own.
Anyone over thirty will tell me I'm still young, and I buy that. If I can hope to live long, and if I value my older years rather than expecting diminishing returns from them, then I am indeed young at thirty. I feel pretty old to be young. Thirty years is a hell of a long time, just objectively. To get to live that long and still be technically young is a pretty neat trick. I know a few things by now, and I have some road ahead to apply them.
But when I turn fifty, I don't want to hear some bullshit about how I'm still young. I won't be--and what's wrong with that? What's wrong with being, in my thirties, at what Updike called "the midpoint," in full bloom rather than just a rosy bud full of potential? Most people seem to prefer bud status. Maybe it's scary to be smack in the middle of life. Easier to dream on what we might be in the future than admit the future has arrived. But unambiguous adulthood could be a good thing. No more school and throat-clearing. Now I play for keeps.
I started thinking of myself as 'about thirty' when I was twenty-eight and a half. That was my attempt to avoid surprise, one of three major factors behind Decade Dread. (Followed by fear of mortality and life dissatisfaction. This according to my research. My research was inferential, meaning I didn't look any stuff up; I just thought real hard.)
The Precor at Gold's thinks I've been thirty for quite some time. (And bless that Precor for being as forthright about these matters as humans wish we could be.) In the leadup, I have wanted to remind myself of both the youthful qualities I want to keep and the mature qualities I wish to own.
Old enough and young enough. I thought surely the overlap could be positive, not just some nightmare of confluent wrinkles and pimples. So I have made myself hunker down hard on my big writing project. (Mature and serious.) And I made myself learn, in full, the dance to "Single Ladies." (Fun and flippant.) Apparently project creation and execution is my approach to life. And I know that about myself because, hey, I'm thirty.
2 comments :
Happy almost birthday Cleb! I love this post. (I would make a birthday waffle for you if I could.) I can't wait to be 30. Saturn returns, dude. Saturn returns.
Gosh, kind of a timely mention of Updike. Ehem.
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