30
Sunday was my birthday. This is a milestone year, particularly if you count in hexadecimal. Saturday was my birthday (observed), and featured friends and cake and board games and swords with meat on them. I got all sorts of nifty gifts, including a cold, which I naturally blame on Marc.
Courtney's birthday is on Friday, but I gave her her present early because we needed extra Wii controllers.
Thank you to everyone who came or sent gifts.
A lot of people seem to think that 30 is some sort of magic turning point, beyond which one is expected to settle firmly into whatever static form one's life is expected to take. Get hitched, buy a house, start seriously investing your excess income, shave or grow a beard depending on whether you plan on going into sales or academia. Well, I've got the marriage thing all planned out, but I think that mostly that sense of post-30 stability is an illusion. At some point you figure you'll be a "grownup", but that never seems to happen. Life is constantly in flux, and we compose mental snapshots of our lives as they are and as we want them to be in order to ease the nagging sensation that we're not doing as well as we could have, or not doing what we were destined for.
I don't feel any different today than I did at 29 (except in the strictest technical sense, what with the sneezing and the coughing), nor would I expect to. However, the one thing I really didn't expect at 30 is having to go job hunting again. It's like that line from Fight Club about furniture:
"You buy furniture. You tell yourself, this is the last sofa I will ever need in my life. Buy the sofa, then for a couple years you're satisfied that no matter what goes wrong, at least you've got your sofa issue handled."
I feel the same way about careers. Which, now that I think about it, is probably part of the problem.
4 comments:
So does that mean you know for sure that you'll be looking for work at the end of the month? Bummer, dude.
We had a great time at the shindig. Hope our infant/canine shenanigans didn't disrupt you too much.
I like our furniture, our sofa, loveseat, and chair with matching ottoman. And it will be all paid off this month! Thank you Jordan's for interest-free financing!
Eric -
Yeah, my contract is up at the end of the month, so it's back to freelancing.
It was a pleasure having the three and a half of you there. You're welcome anytime.
At 30 I had a beard (academia). Come to think of it, you've never seen me without one. I also had a job--you have seen me without one for 8 years now.
You should know who's responding, or I reared you wrong.
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