On Turning 30

So tomorrow I turn 30. I’m spending the last day of my twenties in a totally mundane fashion, plugging away at the office before moving another carload of stuff down to Troy this evening. I’m hoping maybe someone will take me out for a drink later to commemorate the passing of my youth, but we’ll see if that happens or not.

First off, let me say that I absolutely hate July 4 being in the middle of the week. It almost makes having the day off more trouble than it’s worth. That’ll stop being true, of course, once I no longer live in Bowling Green and thus eliminate the travel portion of the holiday, but this time around it’s kind of a pain.

It seems totally bizarre to think that I’ve already lived longer than such luminaries as Kurt Cobain (27), Jimi Hendrix (27), Janis Joplin (27), Jim Morrison (27), Tupac (25), and James Dean (24). Those names bring to mind people who accomplished quite a bit in their short time, and in that context it’s almost disheartening for someone with a relatively high opinion of himself and his abilities to be driving a desk and struggling to get by as he approaches his 30th birthday.

Standing aside from comparisons to extraordinary others, however, I feel pretty satisfied with where I am right now. I have an incredible wife; I’m in the process of moving back to my hometown; and I have a decent job at which I’m very, very good. Sure, I don’t make as much money as I would like, but it’s not like I can’t afford to eat or anything like that.

In the end, I suppose it comes down to how I feel, and I still feel much, much younger than I actually am. I get a great deal of joy out of life, and as long as that continues, I don’t expect that my age will be anything more than just a number to me. I definitely have high hopes and things I want to accomplish, but that will never be how I define or measure myself. Thirty is nothing; I am a young man, and I plan to remain so for a long time to come.