Birthdays

Mine's this Sunday. I'll be entering the last year of my thirties, which is, er ... interesting.

Ten years ago, when I and most of my friends were approaching 30, we theorized about what the ensuing decade would be like. One person in the group was a little older than us and had actually crossed the threshold; we quizzed her as though she'd just returned from a voyage to Saturn. She told us that it didn't really feel all that different. We all more or less concluded that the thirties would simply be a maturer version of the twenties.

Heh, heh.

An interesting thing about the twenties is that it's possible to emerge from them as essentially the same person one was upon entering, except for some wear and tear. That was certainly the case with me. At 19, I was single, nomadic and allergic to "normal life". The same was more or less true at 29. I never remained at one location for more than a couple years; my places of residence included the deep South, Midwestern farm country, and east Asia. For the most part, I tried to make sure relationships did not get to a point where they would change the way I lived. I consumed more alcohol than fruits and vegetables, and never went to bed before 1 am unless suffering from the flu.

At 38 going on 39, most of the above no longer holds. I've lived in exactly two places during this decade: New Hampshire and my home state of Maryland. Instead of staying up past one, I'm up before six. Far from being nomadic, I'm attached to my routine -- or at least as much of a routine is possible while co-raising a toddler. On top of all that, I drink rarely and moderately, and no longer bum cigarettes, since I no longer smoke.

One other thing that happens to people in their 30s is that they realize there's always a tradeoff -- for every benefit a cost, and vice versa. Among the costs of living on impulse is a sense of ephemerality and unsustainability, a.k.a. "ennui". One of the costs of stability is a sense of diminished horizons, no-longer-infinite possibility. On the one hand, staying put makes it easier to work at things which one finds deeply meaningful. On the other, it's easier to hear the clock ticking.

10:28:50 PM   |