So, with my birthday less than 7 hours away this looks to officially be the last post of my 20s. And since there's not a whole lot of "topical" stuff that I have a lot to say about right now I'd thought I'd just do a little bit (ok, a lot bit) of musing on how I feel about growing older.
Quite frankly, I never saw this coming. It's not that I ever had some premonition of doom that I wouldn't ever make it to my 30th, it's just that you never really picture it. More than anything, it just never really feels "real". For the vast majority of your life, you look forward to each birthday, happy and excited to be "growing up". Then you hit about 24/25. The novelty of being able to drink legally has worn off. You stay out till 3:00 A.M. on a work night just frequently enough to remind yourself why you don't do it more often. If you're really lucky (like me), you find someone you love and get married and start to think about your career rather than just your job. Your life starts to settle down a little bit and you start to think that you've arrived at some destination. You're grown.
But then a real funny thing happens. Or actually, a funny thing doesn't happen. Time refuses to stand still for you. It has this stubborn way of continuing to move on and on with no regard to your personal agenda. It's like you're travelling on a bus and just when you thought you were about to pull into the station it just keeps driving by instead at the same speed it's always gone. And once that finally sinks in, you get hit with the thought that the bus is only going to stop once; at the end. And you really have no idea what road it's going to take you down and how short/long that road's going to be.
The strange thing is, none of the rules have changed. And you know that none of the them have changed. It's you that's changed, and your reaction to the rules changes with it. Had I read the above couple paragraphs 10 years ago, I doubt I would have found anything enlightening about them at all. I never had any delusions of immortality. But there's a vast gulf between "knowing" something in the abstract and "knowing" something through experience. On one level, I "know" what it would feel like to witness the Cubs win the World Series, but I don't think that I really do. I "know" what it's going to feel like to hold my daughter for the first time, but at the same time I couldn't be more clueless.
There are just some things that have to be experienced to be understood.
That's a sentence that probably would have driven me nuts up until a couple of years ago. Hell, I'm sure that there will be many times where it will drive me nuts in the future. Nobody likes being told that they can't understand something, especially for a reason as seemingly arbitrary as the year on their birth certificate. "You'll understand when you're older" is probably one of the most infuriating sentences in the English language to be on the receiving end of. A lot of times, it's just a way of saying "I can't really defend my position against yours, so I'm just going to assume I'm right since I'm older". But sometimes it isn't. Sometimes it's true. I think part of growing wise instead of just growing old is recognizing the difference between the two.
The expression goes "age is just a number", and that's absolutely true. It's not that I've received some bolt of lightning over the last 24 hours that makes me feel the way I do. These are feelings that have steadily brewed over the last 5-6 years, and this occasion is simply the lightning rod for coalescing and expressing them. Or maybe the moment of enlightenment happens sometime over the next 6 hours. I'll let you know tomorrow.
I titled this entry "the end of an era" and I think that's about right. As my friend Joe succinctly put it last week "we're not kids anymore" and although that's probably been true for a while now it only really "feels true" now. I look at this time now much as I did as college was coming to an end. I had an unbelievably great time, but I was ready to move on. The last thing I would have wanted was to live the college lifestyle for the rest of my life. Yet even though I was ready, there is always the tinge of sadness that you are leaving something that you remember so warmly along with more than a little apprehension about venturing into the unknown.
As I have been writing this, I realized that I'm talking about becoming a parent at least as much (if not more) as I am about growing older. I can't help it; the two are inextricably linked to me right now.
So time marches on, and so we all must march with it. I stand here on the eve of my 30th and I can honestly say that I'm pretty fulfilled. I have not achieved perfection, because that is impossible. There are always disappointments, regrets, and (possibly the worst of all) the "what if?"s. But I like what I have done with my life, and I'm proud of what I have accomplished. Between an amazing wife, unbelievable friends, and a loving family I have more wonderful memories and incredible stories than I ever could have imagined. But most importantly, I am happy with the person I have become and am. The challenge for me now is to live the next 30 years (or however long I have left) so that I can stand here and say the same thing. I am filled with equal parts excitement and terror at the prospect, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
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13 comments:
*pounds desk*
God damn it, John.
(And I mean that as a compliment.)
Am I sad, am I panicked, am I optimistic, am I reassured, how many, so many things? Frickin' write a book. Then get a talk show.
wow, that read almost like a retirement speech.
yer 30 John. not 80. no one is croaking.
what exactly can you NOT do now that you could 10 years ago? stay out till 3am? who cares. you can still do that, you just have to pay for it a little more. Aside from that, you can still do everything that you could 10 years ago. I'd ay that maybe your body is a little older, but I knew you when you were 20, and you're probably in better shape NOW than you were then.
stop being melodramatic. you're not staring old age or death in the face.
I don't wanna get all new-agey, but you're only as old as you think you are. I mean, if you start making of list of things you can't do because you're 30, then that is the beginning of the end.
I remember earlier this year, a bunch of friends and I were supposed to go to a concert. We all agreed. We all were excited. We all knew it was on a Monday. Then the week before the show almost everyone backed out because it was on a Monday and they had to work the next day and blah blah blah. And I said, seriously you fucks? It is a concert, even for those of us with a commute, ETA at home is AT LATEST 1am.
Don't use 30 as a reason to stop doing things, because that will truly make you old.
(Use your daughter as a reason to stop doing things. That is a reasonable excuse.)
Weir, I would ask you to reread this (or at least just think about it) on the eve of your 30th. Maybe it will resonate more with you then. Perhaps not.
This was intended to be a reflection on feelings I have at 30, not because I'm 30. Periodically taking stock of your life and being a tad philosophical is, I think, a good thing to do from time to time (even if it does mean being a little melodramatic) and this seemed a good (though admittedly somewhat arbitrary) time to do it.
You also seem to be chastising me for implying that there are things I can't do anymore, but I don't think I said anything even remotely like that.
Finally, this post was a kind of therapy for me. I didn't plan this one out. Much as you often do, I just kind of went stream of conciousness and that's what came out. I felt a lot better after I wrote it. If other people can relate to it, or find it interesting/insightful then that makes me happy, but really this one was mainly for me. I think a big part of what prompted it is that I was going through some old photos the other day and I came across a picture of my dad that was labeled "Mike turns 30" (complete with little toddler me sitting next to him) and I started to wonder how he felt about it at the time, so I think I also had in the back of my mind that I was writing this for my daughter to read on her 30th in case she wonders the same thing.
I had a long post about how you're redirecting your feelings about fatherhood into some asinine rationalization about aging, but I got exhausted just typing it (probably because in 11 months I'll be 30.)
Look at your life in the last 2 years: graduation, home ownership, fatherhood.
I don't think you're feeling your age, I think you're feeling your needed level of maturity skyrocket you into actual adulthood.
I'm not an actual psychiatrist, I just play one on TV.
Weir, I haven't done any of the things John has (graduating grad school, home ownership, parenthood) but it resonated with me. I turn 30 in a little over a month.
All right, I give up, you're all old.
Time to start eating dinner at 4pm and going to bed at 7.
I love this post. Quite frankly, I don't think Weir actually comprehended it. To me, it seems like you were reflecting. I'm turning 30 in just a couple of days, and this completely resonated with me. Hope you had a great birthday!
Yeah, Weir, you need to re-read this. I think you missed the point entirely. John, Marena, and Becky... Welcome to the club :-)
Weir will understand better when he's older!
;-)
Aw, thanks. But... I don't want to be in this club. :S
Yeah... you don't really get much choice in that matter Becky.
Bout the only thing I've heard is "You'll know it when you get there." So I'm done talking about this for 11 months.
Then I'll be back to tell you I feel the same as I did 11 months ago. (Or I'll most likely have forgotten about this because I'll be old.)
Ha ha, you guys are funny. We'll see if I'm still laughing in one year and 6 months.
But John, I see where you're coming from. Or rather, I can imagine seeing where you're coming from. I still haven't had that realization that I'm a grown-up. I still feel like I'm preparing for Real Life. And I don't think Real Life will ever actually start, I'll just keep feeling like this until years from now I look back and realize that I've been a grown-up the whole time. I mean, I don't know what I want to do when I grow up. I don't know where I want to live. I'm certainly not settled. And probably never will be, mentally.
You know, you grow up and imagine some sense of infallibility, stability and permanence in your parents. (Which is why divorce is particularly traumatic, but that's another post for another day). But I realize now that it was all an illusion. Our parents didn't have a clue, any more than we do now.
And on that same tangent, I don't think I'd ever be really "ready" to have kids. There's never a good time and I'll never feel prepared. I think it'd just have to happen by accident because if I wait until I'm ready then I'll hit menopause first. What about you and Christy? Were/are you "ready?"
Laura, I am reminded of an old joke about politicians which goes something like "anyone who's willing to do what it takes to become president should be immediately disqualified." The point being that anyone with that obscene amount of ambition and willingness to win at all costs isn't really the best person to govern rationally. Similarly, I believe that anyone who says that they are truly ready to have a child clearly isn't. This is because I think that, setting aside horrible accidents and life-threatening illnesses, having a kid is probably the single most radically life-altering event that can happen to you. And I just don't know how you can ever really be "ready" for that. To borrow another expression (I'm just full of them today) there's a military one that says "no battle plan ever survives first contact with the enemy" - meaning that since you can't completely anticipate what the other side will do once you're engaged you're no longer executing a plan; you're reacting. I have morphed this into "no parenting plan survives first contact with the infant." You can plan and be as prepared as possible, but it pretty much all goes out the window right at birth.
Of course, there are definitely varying levels of unpreparedness, both financially and psychologically. And on both fronts I think that I am as ready as I am likely to ever be. Financially, my career is going fine and with the MBA/CPA now I feel pretty good that I will always be able to be a provider (even if I'm not as confident that we will always be able to maintain our current lifestyle). Psychologically, I knew for sure that I wanted kids, and I also know that I am ready to move on from all the partying (which is not to say that I won't miss it). Then, it just really kind of became a numbers game. I knew that I wanted to have the energy to be able to run around and play with my kids and I also knew that I'd like to have them out of high school by the time I am around 50. So you put all that together and you come up with, "um, yeah, better get started."
Of course for women there is also the biological aspect, which I can't really speak to. Maybe Christy will chime in with her thoughts.
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