Impending Doom Birthday

Yesterday, 10:45, the nail clipping commenced. Mercifully it was a brief clipping. I could literally feel my skin crawling the whole time my co-worker was snip-snipping. One of these days...

Whoo. I feel really weird and off-center this morning. When I went to my GP for the dog bite incident, he set me up to get some blood work done for routine tests. I put them off for a month because I had to fast for 12 hours beforehand. Finally bit the bullet and starved myself until 8 am. Although I've eaten, I just feel kind of woozy-headed.

In slightly less than a month, I will turn 30, one of those age milestones arbitrarily assigned by a weird societal expectation of age and maturity. I understand why 16, 18, and 21 are important because they directly correspond with laws and privledges bestowed. But 30? What's the big deal? I guess it's the whole decade thing; each ten years of life merits recognition.

For some reason, 30 is supposed to be scary. Big Bad Three-OH. Turning 30 is like a death sentence for your youth, as if rolling from 29 to 30 begins your descent into the elderly. Yeah, whatever.

Considering in my great-grandmother's time that people were lucky to live to see 30, I don't think of myself as getting old. I'm not even at the half-way mark for my expected life span. Granted, when I was 18 and thought of turning 30 I somehow saw this age as so old, and I definitely saw myself as having a completely different life than I actually do. There was a time when I said I'd have kids before I turned 30. Huh. Looks like that's highly unlikely.

Actually, I am enjoying this year much more than I did the year I turned twenty. That was just a crazy, chaos of a year. I had just got together with Adrian and didn’t know what to think of us or him for that matter. Anyone who was around for our few months as a “couple” remembers those good times. Academically, it was my most difficult school year. Theatre 300? Blah. Several of my friends from freshman year just walked away from me. I had several bizarre pseudo-relationships that either ended poorly or just fizzled away. It was still a fun year with crazy parties and silly adventures. Some of my best stories and best friends came fromf that year of my life.

Forward ten years. If I met the twenty-year-old-me, would I even recognize the almost thirty-year-old-me? I’ve spent the past ten years learning and unlearning so much. I’ve traveled and had an interesting array of jobs. I’ve started, nurtured, and destroyed relationships. I’ve had the good fortune of raising some beautiful kitties. Three tattoos and five earrings later, I like the me now more than the me at 20. I’m wiser, more experienced, and dammit, I look better.

Sure, my twenties were crazy fun, but I am looking forward to my thirties being an even better time in my life. So maybe I have more responsibilities and bills than I did in 1995. So I don’t think I’ll be dressing up like a naughty school girl for parties, staying up all night to watch the sun rise, or doing nefarious things in public places any time in the next ten years. But I don’t want to. Been there. Done that. My life maybe be a little more mature, more staid, less exciting, but I think I am a better person. It’s taken me the better part of a decade to finally appreciate who I am.

That’s what makes turning thirty not frightening. I like myself. Maybe I don’t love myself. I probably find way too many faults with myself than I should, but I am so much more at peace with who I am at 29 than I ever was at 19. Life at thirty is looking pretty damn good.

Riddle me this Batman: Why at nearly thirty do I have a glaring red zit on my chin? Gosh!