This morning I woke up and then I was 30...
I actually won't be officially 30 until 8:27pm EST, the time of my birth, but all technicalities aside, today is my 30th birthday.
I feel no different than 29, or even 20 for that matter. But I can no longer say "I'm in my 20's" and that makes me sad. I never imagined that I would be one of those people who had a problem with their birthday, and I wasn't, until I turned 29 and realized it would be the last year of, well, my youth.
I always thought that 30 was old. It seemed old to me. When I was younger, everyone I knew who was 30 was married with at least 2 kids, and they were miserable. They worked at jobs they didn't like because they had a family to support, and they were weighed down by mortgages and taxes and PTA meetings and scouts and dance classes. They drove mini vans, and drank beer in front of football games and had backyard barbeques, where the wives would congregate in the kitchen to complain about their husbands and crows feet and stretch marks while the husbands would be around the grill outside talking about the Cowboys or the Lakers. I swore I would never turn out like that.
And I haven't. No husband. No kids. No mortgage. Just me in a little apartment with 3 cats. Yesterday someone thought I was going to be 23. I smiled. A lot. But inside I know I'm not 23. I'm 30. Entering the 4th decade of my life. When I was 20 I looked ahead 10 years and thought, well 30 won't be so bad. Now I look ahead 10 years and see 40, and I'm terrifid of getting older. Because older means my parents get older. Older means my grandparents don't have much longer here. Older means, my own days are numbered.
I want to be 20 again.
I feel no different than 29, or even 20 for that matter. But I can no longer say "I'm in my 20's" and that makes me sad. I never imagined that I would be one of those people who had a problem with their birthday, and I wasn't, until I turned 29 and realized it would be the last year of, well, my youth.
I always thought that 30 was old. It seemed old to me. When I was younger, everyone I knew who was 30 was married with at least 2 kids, and they were miserable. They worked at jobs they didn't like because they had a family to support, and they were weighed down by mortgages and taxes and PTA meetings and scouts and dance classes. They drove mini vans, and drank beer in front of football games and had backyard barbeques, where the wives would congregate in the kitchen to complain about their husbands and crows feet and stretch marks while the husbands would be around the grill outside talking about the Cowboys or the Lakers. I swore I would never turn out like that.
And I haven't. No husband. No kids. No mortgage. Just me in a little apartment with 3 cats. Yesterday someone thought I was going to be 23. I smiled. A lot. But inside I know I'm not 23. I'm 30. Entering the 4th decade of my life. When I was 20 I looked ahead 10 years and thought, well 30 won't be so bad. Now I look ahead 10 years and see 40, and I'm terrifid of getting older. Because older means my parents get older. Older means my grandparents don't have much longer here. Older means, my own days are numbered.
I want to be 20 again.