The good new days

I've never much minded aging, unlike most of my contemporaries. Sure, my relationship with Gravity becomes strained as he stubbornly pushes things down and out, but my body does nothing less than show the growing pains and battle scars of a life I learned a lot from. I see myself, not less than I used to be, but more than (thanks for that, Gravity and Pastries). I grew up with parents who had me at a young age and 'missed out' on the late teen and 20s experience, leaving them to always ponder what could have been and to wax nostalgic about the glory days. All of this could have inspired me to really relish the years they missed, but instead I saw it with some sadness - the sadness that comes from thinking the best days and years are behind you. I vowed at a young age to never be guilty of that, and to see my life - and my best days - as always being ahead of me.

I turned 30 a week ago - without much fanfare, something I wanted to skip. I didn't feel the horrible weight on me that I'm now old or past my prime. Instead I felt some relief. See, while many people remember their twenties as being a grand time and full of parties and chaos and general hedonism, I viewed my twenties as sheer torture. In addition to not having the 'typical' experience, I just found it to be a lot of pretending and fakeness. I found it to be trite. The twenties were, in my opinion, the least earnest decade - though, of course, I haven't had that many to choose from. The experience was all about acting like you knew who you were and what you wanted while you were always looking over your shoulder to see if it was working. The twenties were about proving you could be the first, the best, the biggest, the something. Somewhere though, in the late twenties you finally realize your train jumped the status and preprogrammed track and you, rather hectically, must actually choose the track that fits. Something in my mind, always said that 30 was the age when you knew (or at least better knew) what parts of 'having it all' were for you, and which parts you viewed as not at all appealing... and, more importantly, you were comfortable with your acceptances and rejections.

When asked the question "don't you wish we were [insert a younger age] and could do it over again?" my answer is a resounding not just 'no,' but 'hell no.' I can't think of any lessons I'd want to relearn or relive, even if it meant not making the mistakes that lead to my twisted path. There was an episode of Star Trek (um, I don't really watch that show - honest to god) where Spock wished that he knew what he knew now in the beginning, and in some sci-fi suspension-of-some-serious-disbelief way that happened. The end result? He turned out to be half the man he was, with the moral being: we need to make mistakes, possibly even great ones, to become all that we can be. My life and choices haven't been perfect, but I don't look in the mirror and wish that I'd turned out differently. So, even when I think of the wretched parts of my life that I'd have rather not had, I do not look back with regret - only with wonder at just how much it shaped me.

The turning point of 30 has made me listen differently and think differently. Think about how this decade will be greater and better than the last, what I want from it and what regrets I don't want to have. The difference in listening... well, I realize just how many people gather round to tell band camp stories or other stories of the past. I realize how often, if at all, people talk about the future... and if they link it to present situations. I turned 30 with good laughs and good friends - not with tales of the good old days, which weren't so good and are so very old.