Friday, February 06, 2004
I’m starring down the barrel at 30 this year and I can’t help but wonder if it will be the magical line of demarcation into adulthood. Will I finally be transformed into a card-carrying member of the adult crowd? Is it the moment I’ll become my parents? Will it be when everything I’ve already passed on the way to full-fledged adulthood; career, house, marriage, finally becomes real for me? Will I actually believe in my true age?
These are all questions that continue to have me searching. In many ways, it feels like I’ve been perpetually inquisitive forever, but that is what the real world does, blends everything together. However, I can pinpoint the definitive moment when the realilty became reality: psych 101 class, my senior year.
I’m sure that fact I was able to put off psych 101 until my final semester in college says something about my psychological profile from both a shallow and deep perspective. But it was toward the end of that class that the reality of graduation started blipping on the radar screen and so did the questions and anxiety about what was next?
Adhering to my belief that psych 101 was common sense, I had long since stopped paying attention and I began to perform a psych case study myself. I started writing down questions I had about life after college, just one right after the other. And I filled two pages, no paces, no line breaks. I’d give anything to be able to find the notebook now. I hated that feeling then, but here I sit nearly eight years later and I just have as many questions.
Granted my sanity isn’t helped by the fact that I still think I’m somewhere between my 20th and 23rd birthdays. True to my perpetual confusion, I can’t place my feelings on a definitive age, but there are true realities in my brain where I’m still just about to graduate or enjoying my first couple of years out of school. And while the occasional delusion of grandeur never hurt anyone, I’m beginning to wonder if the duration of mine should be cause for concern. See, I’m married with a mortgage and the insemination summit about to reach an accord. In short, life has sailed past the acquaintance phase and is well onto happening to me. And I’m worried that I’m numb to the true gravity of it all.
I’ve been wondering a lot lately what the 20-year-old version of me would think of the present tense me. You can imagine the conflict that occurs when the 23-year-old present delusion self gets in the middle of this. I know all this is coming because I’m facing my 30th, but I had big dreams when was safely ensconced in college a decade ago. Talk about the world being my proverbial oyster, I had dreams and a great sense of self that fueled by the all the adult freedoms, none of the responsibility that college provides. Back then, it wasn’t matter of wanting to be the next Eddie Vedder or Bob Costas, it was a matter of when that was going to happen. Of course, it didn’t…or hasn’t or never will, depending on which of me you ask. The point is, I felt vibrant back then, like I was on the cutting-edge of something that would revolutionize the world. I still feel that, but now, that feeling seems fleeting. I worry that somewhere along the line I’ve made a choice that has lead me down a safer path; one that while my goals have always remained in focus, has made it that much more difficult to achieve. Is the road of suburban life too safe?
So many people try it. Growing-up it is the one thing you always expected you would do. Row, get a job, get married, have a family. It was just the way it was. But is it still? With half of all weddings ending in divorce, is the expected work ethic of this nation too much? Does getting to your goal require more of a push than falling into a family will give? I have to wonder, but again, it can only come down to me.
Still, the fact I am in considering having a kid blows the present day version of me away. It pisses the 21-year-old me off. Life has a way of happening. I don’t know and I’m wondering if I ever will. In so many ways, it’s good. Family that is, the security of it and the notion that walking alone through this world will never happen. And then there is the part of me that is, and will probably always remain, the young kid in my mind. Which is why this is weird. I’m in a great position, but for some reason want to give it all back to youth. Are we constantly chasing our youth, is that normal?
I’m inclined to hope it is because I don’t see myself realizing 30 anytime within the next year. Which scares me.
These are all questions that continue to have me searching. In many ways, it feels like I’ve been perpetually inquisitive forever, but that is what the real world does, blends everything together. However, I can pinpoint the definitive moment when the realilty became reality: psych 101 class, my senior year.
I’m sure that fact I was able to put off psych 101 until my final semester in college says something about my psychological profile from both a shallow and deep perspective. But it was toward the end of that class that the reality of graduation started blipping on the radar screen and so did the questions and anxiety about what was next?
Adhering to my belief that psych 101 was common sense, I had long since stopped paying attention and I began to perform a psych case study myself. I started writing down questions I had about life after college, just one right after the other. And I filled two pages, no paces, no line breaks. I’d give anything to be able to find the notebook now. I hated that feeling then, but here I sit nearly eight years later and I just have as many questions.
Granted my sanity isn’t helped by the fact that I still think I’m somewhere between my 20th and 23rd birthdays. True to my perpetual confusion, I can’t place my feelings on a definitive age, but there are true realities in my brain where I’m still just about to graduate or enjoying my first couple of years out of school. And while the occasional delusion of grandeur never hurt anyone, I’m beginning to wonder if the duration of mine should be cause for concern. See, I’m married with a mortgage and the insemination summit about to reach an accord. In short, life has sailed past the acquaintance phase and is well onto happening to me. And I’m worried that I’m numb to the true gravity of it all.
I’ve been wondering a lot lately what the 20-year-old version of me would think of the present tense me. You can imagine the conflict that occurs when the 23-year-old present delusion self gets in the middle of this. I know all this is coming because I’m facing my 30th, but I had big dreams when was safely ensconced in college a decade ago. Talk about the world being my proverbial oyster, I had dreams and a great sense of self that fueled by the all the adult freedoms, none of the responsibility that college provides. Back then, it wasn’t matter of wanting to be the next Eddie Vedder or Bob Costas, it was a matter of when that was going to happen. Of course, it didn’t…or hasn’t or never will, depending on which of me you ask. The point is, I felt vibrant back then, like I was on the cutting-edge of something that would revolutionize the world. I still feel that, but now, that feeling seems fleeting. I worry that somewhere along the line I’ve made a choice that has lead me down a safer path; one that while my goals have always remained in focus, has made it that much more difficult to achieve. Is the road of suburban life too safe?
So many people try it. Growing-up it is the one thing you always expected you would do. Row, get a job, get married, have a family. It was just the way it was. But is it still? With half of all weddings ending in divorce, is the expected work ethic of this nation too much? Does getting to your goal require more of a push than falling into a family will give? I have to wonder, but again, it can only come down to me.
Still, the fact I am in considering having a kid blows the present day version of me away. It pisses the 21-year-old me off. Life has a way of happening. I don’t know and I’m wondering if I ever will. In so many ways, it’s good. Family that is, the security of it and the notion that walking alone through this world will never happen. And then there is the part of me that is, and will probably always remain, the young kid in my mind. Which is why this is weird. I’m in a great position, but for some reason want to give it all back to youth. Are we constantly chasing our youth, is that normal?
I’m inclined to hope it is because I don’t see myself realizing 30 anytime within the next year. Which scares me.
