The Big Three-Oh

Tomorrow I turn thirty.  I will no longer be a young man, but I will not yet be an old man.  I'm really not sure how I feel about this.

On the one hand, I already think of myself as being thirty.  For the last four or five years, I start thinking of myself as my approaching age around the beginning of the year, in order to lessen the impact.  After all, how we think of the aging process is an artificial construct that we create by how we mark our age.  What I mean by is that we only age one day at a time, but because we mark the anniversary of our birth as the time when the numerical representation of our age progresses forward, it feels as if we age an entire year instantly.  I'm really only one day older so I try to think of it like that.

On the other hand, this year is different.  Maybe it's because my age will enter a new decade, maybe it's because of the way my life is right now (while I am hopeful for the future, it doesn't change the fact that I'm still unemployed and separated), or maybe it's something else that I can't think of.

Whatever the reason, I am feeling a bit apprehensive about my upcoming birthday, which is unusual for me.  Birthdays are not a big deal for me.  I gave up on birthdays being "special" a long time ago.  Not because my loved ones did not treat me well on my birthdays, but as a child I had built up in my mind that birthdays had to be these grandiose celebrations that weren't feasible in reality.  No matter what was presented to me, I was going to be disappointed (I blame TV for making birthdays into a bigger deal than they really are because it was an easy source of conflict for writers to use).  So I made the decision to not get excited and for the past several years, I haven't really been (but in a good way: if you don't get excited anticipating something, you're much more likely to be excited experiencing it).

I do want to say that I know that my apprehension is not caused by who I'm staying with.  I know that the Larsens will do their best to treat me well (I'll post about what museum we visit next time).

I think that my feelings are mostly from staring at my own mortality a little closer (which I'm sure for my parents and grandma is laughable).  Like I said, I won't be a young man anymore, which I've been since I turned eighteen.  Maybe it's because a part of my identity is changing again and having gone through that so recently, I'm more sensitive to it.  Maybe it's a little of everything.

Anyway, Happy Birthday to Me!