Up until about yesterday I’ve felt really good about turning thirty (on Saturday! One day after Mo!). I’ve been talking about how I am well rid of my twenties, how I often feel that I sort of wasted them. In fact I don’t think I’ve spent any time at all being twenty-nine, really; I pretty much started saying I was thirty last May.
And it’s not that I really wasted my twenties, I guess. It’s just that I spent most of them either in school or working. I had a lot of debt right after I graduated and clearly I just wanted more, as I went ahead and got that social work degree. I have spent the majority of my twenties trying to stick to my budget, doing all my homework, eating my vegetables, getting up early for work, being monogamous, and paying my rent. That’s not a waste, right? In fact I’m glad I’ve done and do all those things because I generally prefer responsibility and control to chaos. I like planning things and I like not worrying about my bills and I like getting As. It’s just…it’s just a little boring, that’s all. It doesn’t seem like much of a life, if you were to pile everything up in the middle of the living room. It’s not enough.
And, lest you think I’m ungrateful or blind or stupid or some combination thereof, I hasten to add that of course there have been many good things about the last, jeez, decade. Of course there have. At the top of my list would be all my friends, of course, not just the old ones but the new ones that have come in to my life, many through this very journal. I’ve done some interesting work and I can honestly tell you that I’m becoming a better therapist by the day. I’ve been to Europe and Burning Man and Texas, I’ve been a bridesmaid five times, I’ve jello-wrestled, and I’ve gone through a drive-through naked after playing strip license-plate-game driving south on the five freeway. I’ve learned to waltz and tango and bellydance and have discovered an actual interest in politics that I never thoughts I would. And of course I’ve been crazy in love many times with many people and had my heart broken and cried until I thought there were no more tears in the world, which maybe isn’t a totally good thing but maybe it’s not a totally bad thing either because do you trust anyone who hasn’t done those things, who found what she wanted in love right away and had no regrets to speak of?
So it’s not that I’m exactly diminishing those things, and it’s not that I’m not saying that adhering to Erickson’s stages of development is a bad thing. I think it’s that I’m feeling very aware of not having attained several of the markers of adulthood that a lot of my peers have by this time; namely, I’m not married and I don’t have a house.
Now, as far as the not married thing goes, dude, all I can say is I tried and I think if you knew everything that I never wrote about on this journal you would heartily congratulate me for failing at achieving that particular goal. I still don’t think I’ll ever date again and usually I feel a huge sense of peace and calm when I think that, which…I don’t know, I guess that means it’s the right thing. I’m not saying I’d discourage anyone (anyone cool, that is) from falling madly in love with me and doing that kiss on the nape of the neck thing, but the chances of that seem pretty slim at this juncture.
And, of course, the house thing. The house thing, the house thing is killing me and yesterday after going to see the scrubliest, dirtiest, darkest and most depressing 1 bedroom condos the yucky real estate guy…who I knew I was going to have a problem with and why I didn’t cancel the appointment is really unclear to me…I have decided to put that idea on hold for a while. I need more money and I don’t have enough money and I am trying to figure out what to do about more money but until I have more money I can’t have a place of my own. It’s so simple. Lots of very nice people have emailed me to tell me why buying a house is such a good idea and TRUST ME I agree with you that it’s a good idea. It’s a great idea. It’s a grand idea. For a person with more money than I make, or for a person who has another couple of single friends who want to buy a house together. It’s a lovely idea. But I just can’t do it right now and that is making me a little sad, I confess. Way sadder than the not-married thing, interestingly enough. Of course, I was very happy when I came home yesterday from the most uncomfortable 45 minutes in recent memory…and please bear in mind I gave blood AND had a pap smear on Friday…to the cool art and hardwood floors and bookshelves of my current rental. And I am now firmly back in the harsh embrace of my Top Secret Plans, difficult as it may be, because at least I can do the Top Secret plans now.
And, also, children! I haven’t even thought about children. People have children when they are in their thirties. Sometimes even before…Key Girl Manya’s kid just had his second birthday over the weekend, for example, and she doesn’t turn thirty until September. I don’t plan to…and it’s weird, you know, like all of a sudden it’s not enough to say, when people ask you if you want kids, to go “Oh, someday maybe.” Now choosing not to have children is a real choice, not a default, if that makes sense. It’s easier for me, I guess, because ever since I was about eighteen and talking about it under the eucalyptus trees with Anna, I’ve felt pretty strongly that I wouldn’t make a great mom. I dig kids very much and I love pregnant women and babies and I am very interested in birthing practices and parenting philosophies…but that’s it, that’s all. I still feel that way, but those feelings mean more now. It’s not that I’m choosing not to have children now, while I sow my wild oats or while I work on a cruise ship or while I strain every fiber so that I can make partner. It’s that I’m just choosing not too…regardless if I ever hook up with someone with impregnating capabilities.
So, anyway. Anyway here I am, almost thirty with none of the things that so many people I know have when they turn thirty. That feels pretty weird to me and I have to say it’s difficult not to feel like a late bloomer, or even that something is sort of missing. But, actually, guess what just happened, between the time I started writing this entry and the time I finished that first sentence? I think I just decided not to care about all that. Sure, fine, whatever, I’ve not done everything I’ve wanted in my life and there’s a lot I wish I had done by now, but…uh, oh well, I guess. I can’t change it and it doesn’t matter. Not to be all motivational speakerish at you or anything, but it doesn’t matter if I regret the waste of my twenties or not because they’re over as of Saturday and I may as well get on with the ass-kicking of my thirties, right?
Here’s what I want in the next ten years: More love. More creativity in every area of my life. More good conversations with people I love. More goat cheese and more Ruby Red grapefruits. More comfort in my heart. More sleep-overs at the ABL. More friends and more family. More traveling. More pedicures. More risk-taking and more willingness to fail. More certainty. More stupid fake accents. More ambition and more determination. More trust. More kittens. More karaoke. More riding my bike and more dancing. More staying up late and more sleeping in. More really pretty jewelry and more books in my bookshelves. More gorgeousness. More parties. More knowledge about and more usefulness to the community and…hell, while I’m being cheesy, I may as well go for it…and to the world. More feather boas and fake tattoos. More of everything I haven’t had enough of yet, more being exactly what I am and nothing else.