I grow old... I grow old...

When I was twenty-four years old I dreaded my thirtieth birthday, but for different reasons than I do now. I was still in University then, finishing up the last year of a creative writing degree. At the onset, those of us in the program (with some exceptions) started out certain we’d all be little wonder boys and girls by the time we’d finished. We’d form a crew; we’d write and be written about. This of course never happened. Near the end of fourth year we were all certainly better writers, but none of us were superstars. We weren’t even published. But it was okay, I rationalized; I was still young. While my original plan—to have amassed a portfolio of writing so enormous that something would have to get published—failed entirely, my new plan would simply be to publish a novel by the time I was thirty. It was six years away. Actually, I think the full plan was to churn out three books by then, because then one would surely get picked up. If I couldn’t publish a book by the time I was thirty, I was a fucking failure—that’s what I decided.

Well The Turning is now twenty-four days away and clearly the master plan didn’t succeed. I’m still three books short of my goal, and unpublished, but it’s not the concern it once was. I’d found a job that I could be serious about, and before school had ended I fell back into the best relationship of my life. Things got in the way, and while I can’t account for all the stray hours, I can account for enough of them that I’m not ashamed of what I’ve done in the meantime. If I include myself—and I haven’t entirely given up—there are four of us from that year of the program that still actually write: Bill, whose small doses of genius are, nonetheless, genius; Jamie, who at last sighting was working on Upfront Windsor; and Dani, who’s kicking all our asses with her grants and her website and her published work.

So, this ‘haven’t left my mark’ argument—the obvious choice—isn’t the reason I dread thirty. It also has nothing to with my career; while working where I do isn’t what I dreamed of as a child, it’s a good place, it’s interesting work most of the time, and I’m well compensated. I also have an amazing wife who I love more then I could ever describe, so I clearly didn’t come up short on the relationship front. No, what depresses me about turning thirty is that I’m more or less done as a person.

The problem is that, by the time you’re thirty, you’re pretty much over the self-improvement phase of your life. Your thirties are your settling in and settling down years—your Carlsberg Years, if you will. All the great projects of your life have probably already taken place, and if not, they’ll be held off until you retire—at which time you won’t be able to perform them or they’ll be scaled down tremendously. (In your twenties: run a marathon. In your sixties: have a nice walk after Passions.) Basically, if there’s something big you mean to do and you haven’t gotten around to it before thirty—it’s Shits Creek sans paddle.

Don’t let me mislead you—I don’t have any huge goals. I don’t want to build a house or paint a self portrait. I’m not gonna start a band or go to film school. My goals are simple and doable. Things like: be more outgoing, write on a regular basis, get into some kind of decent shape. They’re the little nagging issues of my life, the only real fronts where I think I make for a sorry human being. And at thirty and in those areas—in all honesty—I think this is as good as it gets. I’m pretty sure that all gains from here on will be minuscule.

I understand that this post thirty give-up is not an absolute rule. I’m sure there are people in their fifties that learn to play the piano, and septuagenarians who have taken up boxing, but these are the exceptions. Know that I am the exception to nothing. I fall prey to nearly every guy and husband cliché: I forget the things I’m told, I plan poorly, I leave the house dressed like crap, I stop drinking two beers too late, and whenever no one else is in the room with me, I’m probably touching myself. So it’s inevitable that the older I get, the lazier I’ll get.

I’m not torn to pieces over the issue; I’m just not thrilled about it. If I had a shit job or I was single, I’d be the mayor of Histrionic City right now, but it’s just some small stuff that I’ve come up short on. It’ll get easier, I figure. In your early thirties, you’re ashamed of your shortcomings but incapable of action. Late thirties and on though, you either don’t notice, or more likely, you just don’t give a shit anymore.

So there you go. Apathy is the next milestone of my personal growth.