Perhaps the title is a little too melodramatic. Perhaps I am overreacting. But as the minutes tick away on this eve of my thirtieth birthday, I can't help but feel...retrospective. And slightly depressed, and more than a little apprehensive. I know it's no big deal. And for those of you who are already thirty-plus, I am well aware that I am being silly. But somehow I just can't help but feel a deepening sadness as I let go of the twenties, not quite ready to embrace the thirties.
There were so many things I was going to do before I was thirty - not the least of which was to figure out what I was going to do with my life. Now, at this turning point, somehow it feels like the die is cast. Despite the many examples, in my own family alone, of people who changed their lives completely after thirty, it feels like I'm going to be in this rut forever. But enough of the self-pity... Perhaps instead I should tell myself that this is the year of change, this year I will really take that big step forward and try to grow up. Maybe I'll even get my driver's licence...
Sometimes it feels like I'm half-asleep and still caught in a crazy dream, and I can almost believe that I didn't really go ahead and do all those things I was never going to do...you know, like get married, have kids, buy mutual fund RRSPs... What happened to the new age hippie that I was? The bohemian art-lover who was going to "be creative" and somehow make a living at it? ...I guess a lack of real talent coupled with a need for security made that vision wither away, and almost without realizing it I grew up. And sometimes that reality bites hard. Tonight in the midst of changing the baby's diaper, while another child tugged on my sleeve and yet a third was singing at the top of her lungs, t.v. blaring and toys scattered all around, reality swooped down upon me and I looked around wondering how I ended up in this life. It's not a bad life, it's great, don't get me wrong, but suddenly I was overwhelmed by a wave of nostalgia, a real longing for my late teens and early twenties when I was wild and free. And then it struck me that, even then, I never really let go. All these years I fooled myself into thinking that I was such a rebel...but I wasn't really. Thinking back, it occured to me that (given the circumstances), I was always reasonably cautious and responsible. And I felt a little part of me shrivel up and die inside.
