Another Epiphany … of sorts

Over the last few weeks I’ve lamented even dreaded the thought of turning 30. Unfortunately time is an everpresent and unstoppable bitch, and this past weekend I turned 30 … ”Officiallyyyyy” (Wicked reference).

But something snapped in me this morning … like a switch had been hit.

As 29 crept closer to 30, the thought/fear of being 30 just kind of overwhelmed me. I don’t know how to explain it. Part of me wanted the day to pass and to pretend it didn’t happen. The other part of me wanted to hang out with friends. Eventually the day came and I found myself at my old church (my birthday was on a Sunday) because I wanted to be around friends. I didn’t want to go to a church on my birthday where I was just another person in a pew. Later that day Steph called me on my lack of thinking. I know we probably could have done something to “celebrate” the occasion. But like I said, I was in a weird funk … there is still this weekend (whistling and looking at the ceiling).

I never thought I’d be 30 and be where I’m at now in life. There are things that I assumed would happen over the natural course of my 20s. It happened to everyone else, why not me? Still, the idea of being 30 and having many of the insecurities and inadequacies I had as a teenager just, for lack of a better phrase, “bummed me out”.

Rather than trudging on about all the negative things I thought about getting older, although I know I’m not alone since one of my friends is 28 and says he’s 25 … won’t say names, I should probably get back to the part where something snapped.

This morning I was looking at a t-shirt website and it had 30th Birthday shirts [see them here]. I liked the “Vintage 1979”. Some of them were pretty funny … and I laughed. I laughed at being 30. I think that’s when something, call it my spirit, my soul, or whatever, something clicked and I realized it’s not the Doomsday, End of the World event that I’d imagined it to be. That something said, “F**k this why do I give a s**t about getting old?”. (side note: I find myself using the “F” word a lot more.) Why do I care? Someone who’s 40 years old probably wishes he was my age. It’s just a fricken number. As far as all those “plans” that I thought would happen, well so what? I seriously doubt everyone checks off ALL the things on their “Things to do by 30” list before they reach 30. So who cares??

This has happened before. I think that same thing snapped in me a couple of years ago when I finally decided to move out. I remember being at Marc and Tara’s one night and the topic came up of me moving out. It was like a switch was turned and I said “Screw this, I’m moving out.” As much as I cared about my mother, who was the reason I was still living at home, I realized I needed to move out. She was in God’s hands, not mine. Two months later I had my own apartment. [I should add the Lord pulled a few strings to set me up where I currently live.]

I don’t know how long this empowerment or whatever you want to call it will last. But I don’t want to care anymore. Yes I still have my issues to deal with, but I’ll deal with them.

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