Mon, January 14, 2008

I turn 30 today, which is something I've been dreading since I turned 25, which I dreaded from the day I turned 21 which I dreaded beginning around the time I arrived at college and realized I would be expected to run my own life and would be solely accountable for any goals left unachieved. Needless to say, all that dread seriously got in the way of achieving any of those goals, or even realizing what they might be. Of course, another way of looking at it is that I had impossibly high expectations about how my life would turn out. (Nothing specific, really – you could say I even failed to meet my expectation of coming up with some high expectations – just a general assumption that there would be constant joy and fulfillment.) The problem is, I grew up in the middle of the most fantastic family imaginable, so I naturally figured things would just keep being awesome. Maybe this is why I bristle when people talk about protecting children from the reality of the "grown-up world" (sex, violence, profanity, disappointment, losing at Candy Land) – that protection is fun while it lasts, but there's a price to pay.

Not that I was overprotected. I was simply lucky enough to have marvelous parents who were excellent role models in just about every way. They're devoted romantic partners and best friends. They're champions of education and exploration. They recognize and nurture passion and creativity. They're endlessly supportive. My sister and I were hardly overachievers (at least I know I wasn't), but things generally came easily to us because we were challenged from a young age and learned resourcefulness and adaptability. You get into a groove like that and it's easy to imagine it lasting forever.

It didn't.

In high school, the biggest choice I had to make was which electives to take, and if I picked wrong, the longest it would haunt me is five months. On my own in the cold, cruel world I was suddenly faced with more and larger decisions. Compounding that was the concept of priorities: decisions about decisions. Education, social life, career, personal fulfillment. What were these? How were they achieved? And which was most important? It was mind-boggling, so I opted for the path that had served me well in the past: keep moving forward and assume things will work out. Eventually, I'd land in the job I was destined for. Somehow, I'd meet the woman I was meant to be with. At some point, I'd discover what my life's purpose would be.

Well, perhaps I still will. 30 is not that old, necessarily. Not too old to go back to school. Not to old to launch a new career. (Which I still am hoping to do, although I notice I've approached it with the same mystified apprehension as everything else over the last decade – and it's definitely not going to "work out" by itself.) But 30 does have certain restrictions. It's too late for young love. There will be no high school sweetheart for me. Anyone I meet now is going to be like me: thirtyish, with a job and a checking account and responsibilities – and habits too well established to change. No shared journey of self-discovery for us; we're already found, for better or worse. We just have to decide if we can live with each other. Spontaneous, carefree whimsy is out the fucking window.

Ask anyone who knew me at 20 and they'll tell you I was obsessed with romance. Dad got married when he was 23 to a woman he met when he was a teenager, so I felt like I was already playing catch-up. I fell in love at least a dozen times a day, and I was desperate to start building a relationship so we could have a few years of fun and discovery before we got married and enjoy a few years of that before we had children, so we wouldn't be codgers when they were teenagers, so we wouldn't be vegetables when they were having kids of their own. 30 isn't too late for many things, but it is specifically too late for all of that. But I'm over it anyway, much to my own astonishment. Which is the most surprising thing about the last ten years, specifically the last five, specifically the last two. Romantic fantasy was replaced with desperate frustration which became bitterness which is well on its way to weary apathy. Ten years ago, a cute girl on the street would fill me with daydreams of holding hands or snuggling in front of a movie. Now, it's a rote inner monologue: That stuck-up bitch would never talk to me. Probably too stupid to carry a conversation anyway. I couldn't be with anyone who'd buy that purse. She probably has a boyfriend – or worse, a cat.

What killed Romantic Jameson? Do we blame the media? A raunch culture of eternal recaptured youth, trapping twentysomethings in an endless cycle of meaningless hookups, deferring their search for a soul mate until they're too wrecked to find one? The Internet, for making everything seem possible, and thus nothing seem good enough? Probably not – in all likelihood Romantic Jameson was simply crushed under the weight of his own stratospheric expectations. And if so, I say good. Correct me if I'm wrong, but if love can't be like it is in the movies, doesn't it make more sense to skip it and go to the movies?

I'm 30 now, and I'm only going to get older, fatter, balder, and dumber. (In essence, I'm regressing towards George Costanza.) No more wondering about the future Mrs. Onebee – what will she be like, what will she like about me, what parts of myself will I have to hide from her. She doesn't exist; she was always just an illusion, like every part of the "normal life" I imagined years ago. On the plus side, I won't have to share my TiVo or defend any of my little idiosyncrasies. I won't have to feign interest in her family or wonder if she's reshelving the DVDs in the wrong order. And in a way, this offers some assistance with the big priority problem. Pluck romance off the list, and everything else moves up one. I reached this conclusion almost exactly three years ago, and set myself on a course to do something about it: forget dating, and throw all my efforts into a new career. In that time, I've made some tangible progress but not a lot. In my defense, there was some good TV on.

I'm still puzzled about my life's purpose. It has to be something, doesn't it? It must be more than most people's purpose: to not die for a few dozen years in a row. Am I cursed with the awareness that life is fleeting and insignificant? Am I too smart to be happy? Too miserable to be stupid? Could I shrug all this pressure off if I just believed in an afterlife? I'm not crazy enough to wish for happiness or contentment, but I'd like to look back and say it was worth it. I earned my place on the planet; I lived up to the wondrous gift of life that was bestowed upon me.

Of course, at 30, I'm still technically looking forward more than looking back. I'm on my sixth mid-life crisis, but there are plenty more to come. What will become of me? Will I fulfill my potential? Will I figure out what the hell my potential is exactly? Who knows. Today is the first day of the rest of my life. And it's all completely unpredictable except for one thing: I get a cake. I can almost live with that.

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