Some Thoughts On Turning Thirty
Aug. 20th, 2010 08:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mark_asphodel When I was growing up, I was bombarded by the perception that turning thirty was a terrible, terrible thing, the beginning of the end of your life. I remember, as a very young child, crying as I contemplated that my own dearest mommy would soon be thirty... in three or four years. I think in some ways it was a trickle-down effect from the Yippies and the 1960s in general (Hope I die before I get old! Don't trust anyone over thirty!), but back then, letting on that a birthday happened to be your thirtieth meant your friends and loved ones were likely to inflict a black-frosted cake, Grim Reaper outfits, and the Death March upon you-- "festive" trappings even worse than those trick candles that just won't go out.
As my peer group turns thirty, I'm seeing some melancholy and some introspection, but nobody's buying skeleton-infested party favors. Save it for Day of the Dead, man. Now, I'll admit that my current crop of RL friends and co-workers is more likely to respond to a claim of "I'm thirty" with "Oh god, you're so young!" and to then calculate whether or not they could be my grandparent or just a parent on the biological scale. But my cohort-- the tail end of Gen X, the beginning of Gen Y, and those like me born in that Gap Year of 1980 that for some reason no one wants to claim (what, because John Lennon died?) sure isn't behaving like thirty is the end of their days. The histrionics are still coming from the Baby Boomers as they prepare to become "senior citizens." Or not.
The Boomers are the millstone around our cultural neck. For so very long, it's been All About Them and all their rites of passage, and in aging they've not just inflicted the Thirty = Dead mentality on us while we grew up, they've proceeded to carry that morbid circus along with them as the cavalcade passed by. Maybe sixty is the new forty or whatever they claim, but turning forty sure seems to be now what the dreaded age of thirty was back then. Us thirty-year-olds? Some of us are married and some aren't, some have kids and some don't, some are on the career path and some are still living with mom and hanging out at the zoo every day. We're merely living, getting by according to our own standards, and the extent to which we're depressed or upset at our advancing age by itself seems to depend on how heavily influenced we are by external pressure (media, family expectations).
For my thirtieth, I had a splendidly typical day at work, crawled home and passed out on the bed from sheer sleep deprivation, got up and went with my excellent spouse to a meeting of our astronomy club, and then went out with the "lads" (a bunch of guys in their fifties, sixties, and seventies) for coffee and hot fudge sundaes in a cream puff. It was simply a day, one to be met and processed on its own merits... albeit a day with more free stuff and well-wishes than usual. And nobody wore black or brought out a plastic scythe to hack through the cake.
May all my cohorts of the star-crossed year of 1980 enjoy the culmination of our thirtieth year upon this planet, and may we experience as many more as we can stand.
As my peer group turns thirty, I'm seeing some melancholy and some introspection, but nobody's buying skeleton-infested party favors. Save it for Day of the Dead, man. Now, I'll admit that my current crop of RL friends and co-workers is more likely to respond to a claim of "I'm thirty" with "Oh god, you're so young!" and to then calculate whether or not they could be my grandparent or just a parent on the biological scale. But my cohort-- the tail end of Gen X, the beginning of Gen Y, and those like me born in that Gap Year of 1980 that for some reason no one wants to claim (what, because John Lennon died?) sure isn't behaving like thirty is the end of their days. The histrionics are still coming from the Baby Boomers as they prepare to become "senior citizens." Or not.
The Boomers are the millstone around our cultural neck. For so very long, it's been All About Them and all their rites of passage, and in aging they've not just inflicted the Thirty = Dead mentality on us while we grew up, they've proceeded to carry that morbid circus along with them as the cavalcade passed by. Maybe sixty is the new forty or whatever they claim, but turning forty sure seems to be now what the dreaded age of thirty was back then. Us thirty-year-olds? Some of us are married and some aren't, some have kids and some don't, some are on the career path and some are still living with mom and hanging out at the zoo every day. We're merely living, getting by according to our own standards, and the extent to which we're depressed or upset at our advancing age by itself seems to depend on how heavily influenced we are by external pressure (media, family expectations).
For my thirtieth, I had a splendidly typical day at work, crawled home and passed out on the bed from sheer sleep deprivation, got up and went with my excellent spouse to a meeting of our astronomy club, and then went out with the "lads" (a bunch of guys in their fifties, sixties, and seventies) for coffee and hot fudge sundaes in a cream puff. It was simply a day, one to be met and processed on its own merits... albeit a day with more free stuff and well-wishes than usual. And nobody wore black or brought out a plastic scythe to hack through the cake.
May all my cohorts of the star-crossed year of 1980 enjoy the culmination of our thirtieth year upon this planet, and may we experience as many more as we can stand.
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no subject
Date: 2010-08-21 12:40 am (UTC)Hot fudge sundaes in cream puffs? That sounds AMAZING. Oh. I'll never find it here, but-- but.
That sounds like a great birthday, though. Congratulations - or happy birthday, whichever is more appropriate.
no subject
Date: 2010-08-23 02:20 am (UTC)Yeah. That probably is a part of it. But I think there was a genuinely pernicious strain of "anti old ppl" thought that persisted in culture via popular media for some time. Yeah, it was fringe, but it was there.
Hot fudge sundaes in cream puffs?
Yep. It's very much a Michigan thing, courtesy of the Sanders Ice Cream/Chocolate company.
Thank you very much. :)
no subject
Date: 2010-08-21 12:54 am (UTC)(Happy Birthday. ;D)
I wish I felt thirty. Or forty. Or even fifty. I'd take fifty. I feel so freakin' old these days. The thought of actually hitting 30, 40, or 50 never bothered me much, I guess... Probably because I've always felt most comfortable around people in those age groups, and I already feel as if I've passed those landmarks...even though I don't physically look it.
no subject
Date: 2010-08-23 03:12 am (UTC)That does tend to change your outlook on aging, most definitely.
And thank you!
no subject
Date: 2010-08-21 04:22 am (UTC)Speaking as another person belonging to the magic '80 (Gen X, IMO; that is my gen in terms of values, ambitions, etc.), all I can say is that the prospect of turning thirty makes me look back on my twenties and realize that, if I had my current knowledge then, I could have made that decade count for something. As it is, my twenties have been, except for a few bright spots (e.g. my marriage), largely a waste.
no subject
Date: 2010-08-23 03:14 am (UTC)I look back on my university years as a wasted opportunity in many respects, but fortunately once Real Life smacked me in the face I got my crap together. I feel ready to take on the next decade, anyway.
no subject
Date: 2010-08-25 01:54 am (UTC)I'd say "You're only as old as you feel," but that's a little cliche, so how about this: "You're only as old as you project yourself." I've always looked younger than I actually am, but I try to present myself as an easy person to rationalize with, age be damned. I think it's the oppositional mentality of Old vs New that makes aging such an abhorrent prospect to a lot of people; someone, say, 40 years old was my age in the past, and some time in the future (maybe sooner than I'd hope) I'll be 40 as well. It isn't as if the "old folks" have something we'll never have-- we'll all be there at some point. XD It's probably because I haven't given it much thought, honestly, but I've told myself life's too short to worry about...how life's too short.
And heck, 30 really isn't that old anymore; come back when you're fifty and we'll talk XD. Besides, those people who thirty years ago said "old people are grody", well...they're grody now, too :P
Hope the next thirty are as good (no, better) than the last! :D
no subject
Date: 2010-08-25 10:17 pm (UTC)Hmm. After living in Michigan, I've decided those long cold winters have to do with it somehow. ;P
Thank you very much!