Another Decade

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I write this week's column in the last few days of 2014, with New Year's Day coming at us in four days or so. With that in mind, let me begin by saying GREETINGS FROM THE PAST! What is this wonderful new world of 2015 like? Are there not flying deloreans yet? (Side note, y'all do realize this will be the year we are flooded with jokes about “Back To The Future, Part Two” right?) This week's column will be a little bit more introspective than usual, the column that runs around this time of the year usually is, as it coincides with my birthday.

This year things feel slightly different, the usual introspection has been going on since late summer, because the week this column comes out, will be the same week that I turn 30. The nature of it being my 30th is why I think this whole year my birthday has been on my mind quite a bit. Birthday's don't really bother me, so it's not the idea of getting older that is on my mind. I've seen people I went to high school with freak out on Facebook over turning 27, and I just look at that and think “Get a grip.”

The biggest thing that turning 30 has triggered inside of me is a look back at my twenties. I have a few regrets, but I'm letting them go and embracing what my 30s could be, full of potential and I think a move beyond all the things that—for a lack of better terms—haunted me. My twenties were filled up some good times, bad times (Cue Led Zeppelin), and up and down times. I struggled with not liking myself, with depression and anxiety. Those still tick up from time to time, and I suspect they always will to a degree. But now it's OK.

That being said the way I feel about turning 30 is that I feel OK with myself. I feel good about who I am and how I am and how I function. I like me more now than I ever have before, that's a wonderful feeling. I'm comfortable. In terms of the actual age I don't feel really any different. Maybe a little more wiser, a little more mature. But I don't feel as if I'm about to be 30 in the same way I never really felt any different when I turned 29 or 28 or 27.

At a recent party I was discussing this very subject with a friend, we both were talking about how we don't particularly feel our age. We know we are these “adult” type people, but we still feel like a kid on the inside, and still get as much excited now as we did then about cartoons and board games and other lovely things. I think that feeling of being “age neutral” is one of the keys to staying young in both mind and body. There are people her and I went to school with who look like they were hung up in a smokehouse for a year, and her and I feel we're looking pretty much on an even kiel.

So that's where I am this week, excited for another year of life, and hopefully another full decade. Feeling hopeful about the future, and feeling more relaxed with myself than ever before. I have a good feeling about 30, and 2015 in general. Now just to sit back and wait for my hover board to come in.

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