The Big 3-0: Melissa Reed

When I lived in Northampton, MA I had a dear friend that wouldn't come visit me at the cafe where I worked. "I don't want to see you like that. I want to see you dancing," Liz explained. When I think of Melissa Reed, who I also met in Northampton, I imagine her in that state of freedom, dancing the night away. Melissa is one of the sweetest and most honest people I know. I'm excited for her dance into a new era of life; thriving, and free.  
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I feel like I’m getting younger and wiser.

My 30^th birthday is only two months away. It has been weighing heavily on my mind. The thing is I grew up too fast. I’ve been independent for a long time (or so that’s what people tell me). Definitely far too responsible.

I grew up in a small town in New Hampshire. My parents found God around the time I turned four. They sent me to a private Christian School from Kindergarten to 8^th grade. Then, thanks to my sister’s learning disabilities, we both got to go to a public high school.

Since I can remember, I was required to go to church every Sunday. Missing a week was not an option. “If you’re too sick for church, then you’re too sick to hang out with your friends,” my parents said. So I went. I didn’t always dislike church. It was something we did every Sunday, just like eating dinner together as a family. But over time I started to feel like a hypocrite. I didn’t want to go anymore.

Growing up, my parents never encouraged me to reach for my dreams, never encouraged me to go to college. I never even thought of it as an option. To be honest, I’m not sure my parents even believed that I could. Since I was kid, my parents have filled me with so much doubt. They never trusted me to do the right thing. Throughout my adolescence, my parents taught me to fear; to fear the world, to fear people I didn’t know, above all to fear the unknown.

In high school, when I had the option of choosing my classes, I always picked the easy ones. I didn’t apply myself. I knew that I was cheating myself by taking easy classes, but what did it matter? I didn’t know what I was good at anyways. What were my passions? I didn’t know that, either. I couldn’t envision any kind of future for myself outside of my house, but by that time I knew I couldn’t live with my parents any longer.

At age seventeen, in my junior year of high school, I ran away. My parents had given me an ultimatum: go to church or we’ll take away your car and your driver’s license. I turned in the keys to my boxy Ford Festiva and headed for Vermont. 

Dropping out of school wasn’t really part of my plan. I just needed to get away from my parents. I tried to enroll in a high school in Vermont, but that didn’t pan out because I was still a minor and not a tax-paying resident. The following months were very challenging. I survived mainly through perseverance and the kindness of strangers. I tried renting a room from a friend, only to have my rent money stolen. After that, I lived with my boyfriend at the time in a tent beside the Connecticut River. (This my parents really didn’t understand; my mom said, “if you like camping so much, why don’t you set up a tent in the backyard.") From there, I moved around more, worked anyplace that would hire me: gas stations, pizzas joints, supermarkets.

Since I left home, I have been trying to find my way in this big scary world that my parents taught me to fear. I have been living in Massachusetts for the last twelve years now and working at a supermarket, whose name I won’t mention, for eleven. I hadn’t intended on staying where I am so long. It just happened. I started off working third shift stocking shelves because the pay was good. Eventually I moved to days, and from there into a managerial position.

My job has it perks. I have sick days, personal days, a good health insurance plan. Starting next year, I’ll be up to four weeks of paid vacation. Over the years, I’ve been able travel to places like New Zealand, Spain, France and Guatemala. I have a 401K. I should be happy, right? I’m on the right track. I have a silver 2005 Toyota Matrix that I bought brand new and paid off in less than four years. I probably have enough money saved for a down payment on a house.

But my job doesn’t make me happy. It’s the same thing day in and day out. The work is repetitive, mind numbing. I don’t feel satisfied. I want to use my mind. I’ve been there too fucking long. I feel trapped. 

Recently, I realized that the only way to change my life is to believe in myself and make that change happen. So that’s why, just shy of thirty, I’ve been putting myself out there, trying new things. I’m taking Spanish classes. I learned to knit. I’ve made myself a resume and looked into career counseling. I’m even seriously thinking about enrolling in a community college, which is a really, really big deal for me. For the first time in years, I can see a future for myself, a bright one full of hope and possibility. Lots of people are intimidated about turning the big 3-0, but I’m excited! For me, it feels like a new beginning.

The Year of the Whale: Pooja Kanwar

I think anyone that knows her would agree: Pooja Kanwar has super powers. She possesses the uncanny ability to balance fun with responsibility, reckless abandon with fierce intellect, and charisma with modesty. A superhero that is also deeply human. To say that our connection was based around music would be a gross understatement. With about a dozen mixtape exchanges and a number of live shows shared together, music has become embedded in the language of my friendship with Pooja. Catching up with her always renews my faith in humanity. I could go on, but I will just let Pooja take it from here...  

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It was December 27^th, 2009. I woke up perplexed by the peculiar nature of the dream that had fogged my mind over. I remember it as vividly today as I did that morning: I was with my good friend Rose from undergrad, and we were hiking (in legwarmers mind you) to the highest point in Burlington, Vermont. We reached the top and from an eagle's eye view, could see Lake Champlain rapidly inundate the city of Burlington. There were waves crashing on to the land, but more importantly, there were whales…so many whales…everywhere. Whales stranded on top of semi trucks, washed up into beer gardens, and many frantically swimming through minimal depths of freshwater, confined up against one another as if they were salmon spawning. It was a very distinct and chaotic feeling that I immediately wrote about when I woke up, posted on my Facebook and various other blogs. This was during the first month of my freshly commenced PhD program at the University of Vermont. I was 28 years old.

A few hours after I had wrote out my dream and my curiosity behind such vivid imagery, my best friend Kate asked me if I had seen the latest news in New Zealand. I had not and this was the link she sent me:  http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Beached-Whales-In-New-Zealand-Rescue-Teams-Save-Two-Thirds-Of-Pilot-Whales-That-Swam-To-Shore/Article/200912415509184

At this point, knowing that New Zealand is 18 hours ahead of the states, I felt pretty strange; almost as if I had seen this in my dream prior to it happening. Okay, okay…I know this is starting to sound like some new age touchy-feely business but bear with me...it intensifies. As I mentioned, this was my first year enrolled in a PhD program. I had no idea what I was going to be researching, or why, and this was anxiety inducing to say the least. My Bachelors and Masters degrees were both focused on India, specifically in rural water supply and rainwater harvesting practices and I had been struggling on where to go next with my research. A few months later, after contemplating switching advisors or potentially even Universities, a project was presented to me. It involved working in a harbor in the North Island of New Zealand, examining ecosystem services, policy infrastructure and governance challenges. 

A few days after I solidified my avenue of research, I went out and sat at a bar to have a victory beer. The woman who was sitting by me had a blue patch on her purse; it was of a Blue Whale.

So, now we have the whales, and New Zealand both of which have me constantly thinking about the dream I had months before. Jump back to winter break of 2009: I was visiting my home in the great state of Iowa when I had the dream. Over the past few years I had developed a strong connection with my dear friend from college who has been a reoccurring, and extremely positive, force throughout various points in my life. I was, at the time, in a relationship with someone else and it had been in flux for a good chunk of time at this point. I see my dear friend and things, well…get complicated. With the chaos of love, school and the classic late twenties crisis, my best friend took me to a psychic for my 29^th birthday. This woman informed me that I had a slightly open third eye and was experiencing a distinct cycle in my life…Saturn Return (I refer you now to a wonderful post by Traci Yoder that can help explain what this means). 

During my 29^th year I: ended a long term relationship, moved for the 12^th time in 10 years, solidified my dissertation research, found the love of my life, lost friendships I by no means would have anticipated losing while being reassured of those solid and stable parts of my life that will never budge, gained incredible new family and friends, strengthened relations with my immediate family, and have the best understanding I have had yet of what works for me in my life and what does not. 

I am now 30. Am I married? No. Do I own property? Sadly no, long live wasting money on rent. Do I have a job? Nope. I have been a student for 25 of my 30 years of existence. Do I even have a dog?!? Ack! I wish. Do I want all these things? Well, sure. Although, I am unsure if I did have these things that I would have lived in the eight different geographical areas I have, or worked the in the nine vastly different sectors I have been employed by. Maybe I would not have obtained two degrees and started the third degree I have dreamt of having my whole life, or fallen in love the number of times I have and failed… I was living, learning, failing, loving and repeating this process over and over until now, and I have found what works in a magical, motivating way and healthy way.  

I believe the dream I had was the beginning of my Saturn Return. The whales in my dreams represented a time of frantic change and that of colossal magnitude. The disorder depicted was symbolic of the trials and tribulations that would be coming to an end as I thankfully exited my 20’s. It was a time of exploration, experiencing hardships and bliss, and coming to a greater awareness for myself about what works with whom I am and who I strive to be. Honestly, I feel confident that through all the sorting and filtering through my 20’s the best is definitely yet to come, and I welcome my 30’s with open arms. 

[On a side note, I am about 60 days into my 30^th year and I ironically find myself writing a paper about whales for a marine ecosystem services class that I am required to take to complete an Ecological Economic certification program at UVM.]

Existential Crisis, Please Go Away: Timothy Sylvia

After being part of the Cape Cod underground music scene in the mid/late-90's, it's nice to know that there are still good people fostering the local scene and documenting its history. Tim Sylvia is one of those people. I didn't know him really well back in the day, but I can still picture him right up by the PA as my band Social Virus played our final shows at the Orleans Juice Bar. Tim was always super supportive and enthusiastic of our music and other bands we played shows with. In addition to playing in a number of bands himself over the years, Tim has been setting up shows, running a distro, and putting out records through his From the Heart Media. A compilation of Cape Cod bands, past and present, is currently in the works. Music communities everywhere need more Tim Sylvias.  
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Warning: This could get messy.

I'm 28, and I'll be 29 in August. At 28, my life is not what I was expecting and/or hoped for. Probably a token and reoccurring statement. Go figure. All I know is I want this existential crisis to go away. I guess that's what you call it. In the current scheme of the news and events of the world, it's hard to decipher if the doom you are experiencing is because of how scary the world is, or because you're actually experiencing a personal existential crisis. I'm having a hard time, that's all I know. If you're a young, creative, or generally just a forward-thinking person, regardless of any standard, I think you are aware of what I am saying. 

Where do we go from here? What can I do? I don't need to touch on specifics. Too many thoughts, too many questions in my head all the time. Anxiety. Do you think the existential crisis 30 years ago was what it is today? It seems like mine is possibly the worst that could come out of my family history. Look at me?  I can't even keep it together. What I'm trying to get at here is I have a hard time even reflecting on myself at the age of 28, because everything I'm personally thinking about is much bigger than me. Existentially I mean. I need to be more selfish, in my own head at least. I need to be more creative. I need to be less afraid. I need to try and be HAPPY! I guess I can try to reflect on myself.

Let's start with my health. I'm a 350 plus pound man with diabetes. Yeah, I know. I've got to do something about this. I really do. That one sentence, I guess... is my whole real existential crisis. If I don't do something, I may not even exist. That's definitely the most important something-to-think-about sentence in my whole life. I'm always working on it. I swear.

Love, will I ever find you? I'm already very damaged by you at 28. Every time I experience love and it goes away, I just feel more lonely the next time I find you gone. Alone and hurt. So hurt. So hurt that I'm afraid of you. I swear I'll never let this happen to me again, every time. Very cautious about you, love.

I don't consider turning 30 a milestone at all, however what one might have accomplished by the age itself. I guess the only standard for this is set by you, and anyone's opinions you value or take into consideration. Like your parents. I oftentimes think I would have taken bigger, more personally risky and controversial leaps of faith had I not worried about what my mother would have thought about what I was doing for the last 28 years. I guess that makes me a momma's boy, too regretful, and more boring than a family-less me would of been. Which are two things I doubt my mother would have wished for me. I love my family, and I love you, Mom.

Some things I want by the time of my 30th birthday are to be out of my head more often. I want to be healthy or healthier, anyhow. I want a better world to live in, with my help. To take bigger leaps. Huge leaps. Last but not least, I want to be out of this existential crisis. The keyword, and I think the general consensus and theme about turning the age of 30, is change. I need change, we need to change.

The Rocking 30's: David Meek

I don't remember the moment we met, but my first memory of Dave Meek is crashing on sleeping bags together in an empty office in Quebec City. That was 2001, and we were there with dozens of other Bard student activists to protest the dubious Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) meetings that turned the city into a walled off, feudal warzone. Since then, we have shared many other memories together, at Bard and beyond, and have been close friends for a full decade now. In 2005, I introduced him to another dear friend, Jo Weaver, and two years later I was a groomsman in their wedding. I continue to cherish my friendship with both of Dave and Jo. They will always feel close by, even if they are perpetually thousands of miles away.  

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Having turned 30 going on two years ago now, it's interesting to reflect on what at the time seemed like an ominous and exciting milestone. I very distinctly remembered all the excitement and buildup surrounding the passing of that day (and its unsurprising but still a surprise “surprise party”). And all my friends joking that I was officially over the hill.....

At the time, married, in the midst of a Ph.d. program, with a house, dog and mortgage, I wondered whether they were right....(was I over the hill?) and then I decided, and still believe, that the late 20's/early 30's sure feel like I'm dab smack on top of the hill. And damn the view is good!

For me, this time has been one about perspective. Not so much a perspective focused on the immediate moment as perhaps those heady early 20s were, but about a longer perspective in which the present is very much valued, as the best time one has available to achieve one's dreams. To begin with, each of those previously mentioned things, which some might see as artifacts of dreaded Responsibility, including our most recent decision to have a baby while living in India, I see as choices made explicitly in the present with a longer perspective in mind (check out our blog for critical ruminations on the intersections of family life and academia). While each of those responsibilities might be shied away from, they've all had incredibly positive aspects, such as having a house has given me the opportunity to tear up the front yard and set up a massive urban garden.

From my perspective, those late 20's/early 30's have felt like a prolonged music jam session. Whether it is being semi-permanently nomadic, living in Brazil and now India as Jo and I conduct our Ph.d. research, or explore building community through urban gardening, it's been one exciting ride. Partially, these last few years have felt like an ongoing jam, because I made the decision that I was tired of wanting to learn to play music, and there was no time like the present to make good on that interest. Since going down the musical road, playing music has become an integral part of my daily life, and there is always three or four instruments within easy reach. All of those musings are to say, the top of the hill is great, but make sure you bring an instrument to provide your own theme song.

Demobilizing at 30: Ben Webster

I know Ben Webster through the Wooden Shoe. He has been the driving force for our weekly movie night, bringing his cinematic expertise and political savvy to the series. Ben is equally friendly as he is brilliant (as you will soon discover), and I'm sure one hell of a librarian too.
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It is worthwhile to reflect on life’s milestones, and when hitting the big 10-year intervals, it seems obligatory. Everyone approaching 30, as I did last month, is barraged with outside inquiries. I will pass. This personal reflection is valuable, but I have done it in private, so will try a different tack here. Perhaps a prejudice hardened over three decades is that against gratuitous public navel-gazing; I believe you used to be able to call it petty-bourgeois individualism. Instead I want to sketch a few thoughts relating the anxiety (or fascination?) of turning 30 to our particular moment in 21st century, postfordist capitalism. 

First, a common-place condition at 30 among people I know is a declining material standard of living vis a vis our parents. 30 is a convenient generational marker; it is generally the age when people are supposed to couple off, have kids, and take out a mortgage; it is often about the age our parents were when they had us. Much is made of the supposed moral failings of my generation, always referencing how many of us have boomeranged back to living in our folks’ basements. This is mostly bullshit. We can look instead on the sweep of capitalist restructuring from 1981 to today, in short hand, neoliberalism. This has meant the decimation of social services, stagnation or decline in real wages, rise of debt as a means of maintaining consumer spending and worker discipline, deindustrialization in the US, and the crushing and marginalization of people’s movements. If 30 is the new 20, it has little to do with immaturity, and everything to do with a political economy particularly harsh on young adults. Whereas stability could have been expected by a hard-working, educated 30 year old of generations past, now un(der)employment, crushing debt, and precarious living conditions are the norm. Many of my peers have desperately returned to the university or half-baked entrepreneurial gestures, usually only buying time until the next round of bills come due. The current global crisis has only tightened the screws. This obviously provokes anxiety when middle age is around the corner.

The ideological notion of 30 and of the 30 year old self may continue on autopilot, but the material content is probably gone for good. Yet the flip side (and, historically, one may argue, the root cause) of neoliberal restructuring is the expansion of alternative, autonomous strategies of social reproduction. We may include here collective and co-housing, subversion of the gendered division of labor, independent food production, alternative child-rearing, all-ages venues, etc. The left and its milieu continually elaborates and experiments with these practices, many of which insinuate within mainstream society. The barriers between age-determined divisions, ie 20's & 30's, “student “ or “parent,” tend to weaken. In other words, through the autonomous delinking from capital’s ascribed practices of reproducing labor, we decalibrate age from the standards of capital. 30 as a fetishized, anxious omen- a superego threat to remain passive and isolated, ie successful in capital’s eyes- is possibly weakened by collective rejections of capital’s structuring of our psyches, bodies, and lives. The categories (child, young adult, middle age, senior, 20's, 30's, 40's, etc.) of the life cycle read about in psychology and sociology text books, I conclude, are as much positivist suggestions for subordination to capital’s domination as they are physiological/psychological realities.

So although much of the significance of turning 30 has to do with individual perception, I also feel that it has a small ideological function and material relation to the world. My specific perception of turning 30 in 2011 is inseparable from the cycle of struggle which I began contributing effort to in high school. I suspect this is true of all those coming of age in a movement. Seattle went down my first semester in college, I reached drinking age in time to drown my sorrows during the invasion of Iraq. My participation in the dynamic cycle that is now commonly called the alterglobalization or global justice movement, its evolution and waning, is inseparable from my sense of adulthood, of communal fullness and isolation, of confidence and insecurity. Calendar age loses its hold involved in a movement in close contact with senior citizens and high school kids working for common goals. The waning of a movement hurts and drains, but new expressions of resistance always emerge. I’m no longer a student activist, but now a union member spoiling for a fight, to take one example; Seattle and Iraq are hazy memories, but Egypt and Wisconsin revitalize. If aging and its milestones are associated with resignation, cynicism, and declining expectations, then vigorous collective struggle for a better world may be an elixir of youth. Perhaps my optimism won’t hold up, but this is what I strive towards at the very least as I enter the cultural phenomenon that is one’s 30's.

My Next Great Adventure: Wedge Wegman

I think we all have those people in our lives that we wish we could see more of, whether they live in the same neighborhood or on the other side of the globe. Wedge Wegman is one of those people for me. I met Wedge in Philly in the Fall of 2009 when Wooden Shoe Books was moving 2 blocks down South Street to its current location. She had a pickup truck out front that a group of us loaded up with boxes of books and other remnants from the old space. Since then, Wedge and I have become friends through our mutual love of punk rock and baseball. She is one of the most generous and inspiring people I've met in Philly and since I've recently moved down the street from her, I'm hoping we'll see a lot more of each other.

Check out Wedge's company Sickening Thud Productions, online at: sickeningthud.com

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How can I be writing about turning 30?  I still feel like I’m a teenager sometimes. Like I’m fresh out of high school and ready to make my own way out in the world.

But, then it hits me. I’m almost three decades old. Fuck….I still have anxiety dreams about forgetting my locker combination and getting lost on my way to history class. You’d think that by now the dreams would have shifted to some real life anxiety, like getting hit by a car while riding my bike. But, no, my mind hasn’t wrapped itself around the idea that I’m an adult.

I cried on the night before my 13^th birthday. I had no desire to grow up. NONE! And a 12-year-old me thought that on that annual day around 6am I would magically become an adult. By the time I graduated high school I figured adulthood would find me when it wanted to. So, I stopped worrying about it.

While I waited for that inevitable day of maturity, I started my life. Instead of fretting about the unknown, I enjoyed living. And somewhere along the way, I forgot to be scared to grow older. Because it doesn’t mean I have to grow up.

And I absolutely refuse to grow up.

What does that mean, anyway? 60 years ago, if you hadn’t married, spawned, and bought a house in the suburbs by 30 then people wondered what was wrong with you. But today we see more and more people living the single life, going to school for multiple degrees, traveling the world with nothing but a backpack…..things that would have made our great-grandparents uninvite us over for the holidays. 

What is the standard of maturity in our society today? Most people I know would agree that, for a HEALTHY adult, you reach maturity when you no longer rely on someone else to care for you. At least I’ve accomplished THAT in my 30 years.

My mother worries about me. I know she does, even though she tries to deny it, because she buys me socks and underwear. (One important lesson I’ve learned in life is to ALWAYS accept a gift of socks and/or underwear!) But, I pay my bills and I keep a roof over my head. Not growing up doesn’t mean that I can’t take care of myself. I just might not have the life that my parents think I should have built for myself by my 30^th year.

I’ve kept my cat alive for 3 years now. That’s got to count for something, right?

Remember that time when anything was possible and you were gonna do EVERYTHING and go EVERYWHERE!? Well, I still get that way all the time. There’s just so much left in the world to visit and experience.

I’m not bothered about turning 30. Fuck, if Fox Mulder was able jump on moving trains full of aliens when he was in his 30’s, then I’ve got nothing to fear. BRING IT ON! My 30’s are just my next great adventure. The next chapter in my story.

Lately, I’ve been hearing some chatter from the Evangelists on the street. It seems that they believe their savior is coming back to town on May 21, 2011. But, I’m here to set the record straight. Jeezus is not coming to take anyone up to their everlasting utopian bliss. He’s coming into Philly to celebrate my 30^th birthday. I invited him because he does these neat party tricks and I won’t have to spend much on alcohol.

It’s gonna be one hell of a shindig!

Taking the Long Way Around: Colette Hall Vander Plas (formerly Ryder-Hall)

Colette Ryder-Hall was the first person I met in high school that did a zine. I'm pretty sure I didn't know what a zine was until I met her actually. One early issue of Looks Yellow, Taste Red featured a positive review of my sloppy 9th grade punk band PME, generously comparing us to my favorite band Dead Kennedys. Colette was also the first person I knew who dropped out of school on political/ethical grounds and, through her zine, taught me about Grace Llewellyn's classic The Teenage Liberation Handbook. This made Colette a mentor of sorts and definitely an inspiration, whether she knew it or not.

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First, I dropped out of high school. A year later, bored and frightened of enduring another Cape Cod winter, I went to college. After 5 years of enlightening but rather aimless higher education, at the ripe old age of 23, I graduated with a BA. I felt like a prisoner being let out of prison. I was terrified and I wanted back in. So I opted for a MA in creative writing. This involved moving to the middle of the country, discovering I hated teaching freshman comp and taking a job at a natural foods coop to cover the unexpected expenses of being a grad student (steep bar tabs and pricey plane tickets back home for major holidays, mainly). At the age of 25, I graduated again. I stayed at the coop job until I went insane at the age of 28 and realized I had to find a meaningful path in life (which did not involve the retail and merchandising of organic produce), or die trying. I quit my job and drove around the country in a blue Toyota Tercel for awhile, then returned to Iowa, where I went back to school (again) and got married. This is why now, at the age of 31, I find myself in the position of many 22-year-olds: about to graduate, broke and waiting on a Peace Corps application that has been in medical review for several months already.

I do feel old sometimes now. First, while most people assume I'm still in my early 20's when they meet me, I'm pretty sure they're not looking closely. I have collected a lot of white hairs in the past ten years. And I have officially moved past the time when wearing mini-skirts is a good idea. Second, it seems that in the Midwest people tend to get married and have families younger than was the norm on the East Coast. I got married at the age of 29 and while we plan on having a family, it's going to be a while. Being surrounded by people in their twenties who are far more "settled down" than me is weird and it fills me with irrational fear that I've wasted my most fertile years already.

Mostly, I am grateful to have entered my thirties. While the intense emotion and creative energy of my teenage years and early twenties made for a lot of excitement and productivity, it was hard. Everything was louder, brighter and potentially emotionally devastating. At the age of 31, I don't care as much and that's okay. I may not be producing a zine every five minutes or hand-crafting bizarre objects in my bedroom while listening to loud, angry music. I may not be routinely having intense heart-to-heart conversations with random people late into the night. I may not be full of righteous anger and a burning desire to assert myself at all times. Instead, I have an inner stability. I don't constantly wonder if I'm crazy. I don't blame everything on myself. I can rest assured that things generally work out, regardless of how much or how little I worry about them. I am becoming more comfortable with myself all the time.

So maybe my situation is a blessing - a chance to experience my early years of adulthood all over again, with the added bonuses of experience, confidence and inner balance. 

Climbing Up the Hill: Pamela Roy

It's funny how two people can start in different places, traveling separate routes, but occasionally end up in the same place. Twelve years ago(!), Pamela Roy and I arrived at Bard College on the same early August day. For the next 3 weeks, we were classmates in the Language & Thinking seminar for incoming freshmen. Pam was one of my favorite people I met at Bard that year. Since then, we have both lived in different parts of the Midwest and New England and, a decade after first meeting, we find ourselves both in Philadelphia trying to make sense of adulthood and life.   

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Looking through some old family photos, I see a picture of me, age 6, with my Uncle Bill. My uncle is wearing a plaid button-down and sitting behind a cake. I am standing to his right, in a pink striped shirt, arm around him, smiling. From behind his giant eyeglass lenses, his eyes also appear to be smiling. But on top of his head, cocked at an angle, sits a black paper party hat, with white writing that garishly announces, “Over the Hill”. 

It was his 30^th birthday party.

Now, approaching that same mark myself, I wonder what my 30^th birthday party will look like in photos, years later. It will be different from my uncle’s. I will not have any nieces or nephews in the picture, an ex-wife (or husband) under my belt, or a condominium in Providence. Sometimes it is hard to tell whether or not 30 is an appropriate milestone anymore. Maybe as a whole we are slowing the rush to “settle down”. 

Turning 30 does call for reflection about how I’ve changed in my adult life. Some of this recollection is not so deep. For example, I refuse to wear clothing with holes in it anymore, no matter how cute it once was. When before I could have been convinced to be outdoors all day long in the sun with no sunblock, now I cover up and slather that stuff on like it’s going out of style. There are also the bigger things. I still do not have a spouse, own a home, and have no offspring (nor blog). What do I have? A dog, a Master’s degree, and a job that is important and challenging. And, I have a clearer vision of who I am and what I want from life. Why allow myself to feel inadequate just because I am turning 30? Why does this age move us to a battle of the “haves” and “have-nots”?

You know “Over the Hill” – as in, “it’s all downhill from here.” How can it be? I am barely getting started. Perhaps this used to be and is still the case when, by 30, people have it all “figured out.” However, I know that even at 30, I still have many life decisions to make, some of which I will make more than once. I am not “Over the Hill”. I am still climbing up.

The Return of Saturn: Traci Yoder

It is my pleasure to introduce you to one of the most solid people I know: Traci Yoder. I wish Traci was in Philly when I first moved here. It took about a year of staffing at the Wooden Shoe for our paths to finally cross, when she relocated to this city and quickly joined the collective. Traci has saved my life during a particularly difficult period recently, and this is not unusual for her. She is that superhero of a friend that a number of people in her life count on for providing sanity, support, and masterful Tarot card readings. Traci is our rock, helping us feel better about the world and ourselves.  

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For those who know me well, it should come as no surprise that I choose to reflect on turning 30 by writing about Saturn Return. If you pay no attention to astrology, or have never heard of the return of Saturn, a quick Google search will give you all the details. To summarize- Saturn Return refers to the time when the planet returns to the place in its orbit it occupied when a person was born. It takes approximately 28.5 years for Saturn to make a full rotation, which means that the first Saturn Return begins around the age of 28 and lasts for two years. The thirtieth birthday, therefore, falls just as Saturn Return is coming to a close, and provides a sense of culmination and completion to the astrological process that is considered to be the transition from the first phase of life into adulthood.

Let me be frank- Saturn Return can be one of the most difficult periods in life. It forces people to define who they are, what they want to do with their lives, and to what degree their lives up until that point have reflected their own values and goals. For those lucky people who spent the years leading up to Saturn Return following a path that felt right for them, they will experience this process as one of solidification and success. For those who spent the first part of their lives following the expectations of others, this period will be less pleasant. Unfortunately, most people seem to fall in the latter category, myself included.

Two years ago, I was living in Gainesville, FL. I had a long-term partner who I adored and owned a beautiful house. I was well on my way to finishing my PhD in Anthropology and beginning my life as a professor and researcher. I had accomplished a great deal and had the love and support of family, friends, and mentors. Everyone, including myself, thought that my life was on-course.

And then…THE RETURN OF SATURN. To be brief, the next two years went something like this: I left the Anthropology program, started another graduate program in Library Studies, got a new job in a university library, ended my five-year relationship, moved out of my house, quit my job, left Florida and moved back to my hometown, left my hometown and moved to Philadelphia to live with one of my oldest friends, started a new relationship, worked at a restaurant to pay the bills, ended the new relationship, changed roommates, left the dead-end job in favor of a slightly better job as a free-lance editor, and got back into radical organizing.

Why did all this happen? Honestly, there was no event or stimulus from the outside world that pushed me to change my entire life. Nothing but a nagging suspicion on my part that something wasn’t right…and that this feeling could not be ignored. Not everyone experiences such dramatic changes during their Saturn Return (I’ll admit I have a penchant for building and destroying things). However, my story certainly reflects how much a person’s life can change in a short period of time, and how those changes (which barely make sense at the time) can lead to a radically different path.

A few lessons I learned through Saturn Return, which hopefully will be useful to folks who are experiencing theirs at the moment:

You’ll feel alone most of the time. Learn to appreciate solitude and enjoy your own company. It may take a while. I can’t pretend I always handled my sense of aloneness gracefully. I’m not terribly proud to say that some days during this two-year period, I hid in my room all day, watching Lost or staring blankly out the window. However, being alone forced me to face the parts of myself I didn’t like very much and led me to eventually change them (after I ran out of Lost episodes).

Everything will seem less fun. Drinking, drugs, sex, partying…whatever it is people do to suppress their anxieties and emotions will no longer provide the same sense of comfort. I stopped drinking entirely during my Saturn Return. Being in rooms full of people no longer distracted me from my own thoughts. Focusing on relationships to avoid my own problems proved disastrous. Finally, I stopped looking for distractions and got down to working on myself and my life.

You will have to give things up. Saturn Return is a time when it becomes necessary to leave behind anything in our lives that does not reflect who we are. This period reflects a transition from the safety and security of the past to the unknown possibilities of the future. The first response most people have is to cling to what is familiar and try to ignore the increasingly strong feelings pushing them to make changes. Don’t do that. Relationships, jobs, and situations will pass out of your life at this time. Let them go.

During my Saturn Return, I felt like I was destroying the structures in my life with no guarantee that the future would be any better. I was exhausted, overwhelmed, and not sure any of the choices I was making were the right ones. I felt older, wiser, and not necessarily happier. It’s hard to write about Saturn Return without sounding grim, but  I don’t want that to be what folks take away from this essay. Saturn’s influence is serious, sobering, and sometimes devastating, but it serves an important purpose.

Which brings me to my thirtieth birthday, which took place in August of last year. My Saturn Return was over, I lived in a new city, and had a new job, new home, and new projects. In hindsight, all the painful choices I had made along the way finally made sense. At 30, I’m happier than I have ever been, and can clearly see that the life I was following up until my Saturn Return had always been more about pleasing my family, friends, and teachers than about doing what I felt was worthwhile. I destroyed and recreated my entire world, and now I can see that I didn’t actually lose anything by doing so…

My Thirty: Leah Harrington

Some people in my graduating high school class may always associate Leah Harrington with the superlative section of the "Nauset Tides" yearbook from our senior year. With her huge smile, recently shaved head, and hip-before-their-time thick-framed glasses, the 1999 photo of Leah, and her male counterpart, was accompanied by the title: Most Dramatic. Or perhaps it was Drama King and Queen? Regardless, I will always think of Leah as one of the most interesting and fun people I have known, and had the pleasure of being friends with, in high school and beyond.

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This is not what I thought it was going to be. It never is. I thought my thirty was going to be all urbanistic, unruly and controversial. Instead I am a preschool teacher, I’m married, I have a baby, and a dog.  All I need is the white picket fence. I thought my thirty was going to be old. My thirty looks better than any other year in my life. I am so much stronger--physically and otherwise--than I ever thought I could be. And I’m on Cape Cod. Where I grew up. The LAST place I thought I’d spend my thirty. This fact is not to be confused with Disappointment. I did jump the canal long enough to understand I did like the Cape, I just needed to contribute to my community rather than expect it to meet all of my adolescent needs. I am surrounded by these incredible people that were hiding for years, and this includes my family. Where WERE you guys? The average age of my circle is actually more around 35 or 40, and I’ve got to say, 40 doesn’t look so bad. You can still be artistic and irreverent and silly and sexy and young, the only difference is you give that much less of a fuck what other people think about you. My thirty is just that. Finally approaching the place where other people’s opinions don’t affect your sense of self. 

Don’t be complacent. Don’t be judgmental. Love with abandon and let go of the people who hold themselves--and you--back. I have so much more to learn, and so much more to grow. I think I’m going to like forty.

So I have a baby, and I thought I’d write more. This is what I have to offer…

My Thirtieth Year to Heaven

by Emily McNair

“It was my thirtieth year to heaven...” I’ve, for as long as I can remember, loved the words of Dylan Thomas. From my dad’s annual Christmas Eve reading of A Child’s Christmas in Wales, to high school poetry recitations, to today, when I thought about what I would write for this blog, when the first thing that came to mind was this line from “Poem in October.” I’m shamed to say that my (purloined from my father so many years ago) copy of his collected poems was more than a little dusty but the words came back to my mind as I read. I once knew this poem by heart, learned it for a competition, but I can admit in my thirtieth year that it was a show-offy endeavor -- long, complicated rhythms, tongue-tangling word combinations -- and it never honestly occurred to me that I would arrive at this year in my life. That I’d rise one day “in the rainy [spring]/ And walk abroad in a shower of all my days,” reflecting on, reliving the milestones, the landmarks, times when I “... whispered the truth of [my] joy.”

My life is so far from where I imagined it would be. Granted, my first childhood aspiration was to be a hot air balloon. Not possible? A whale then. What? No? Alright, a pig farmer. I’m happy to say that last one didn’t pan out -- I thought the pigs would be raised more for companionship (a la Charlotte’s Web) than consumption. But nevermind that. Then for the second half of my life so far, I imagined I’d be living abroad, most likely in Nepal, studying, working, doing something. But somehow I’m here in Philadelphia. More rooted everyday, some days happy about this, some days horrified, many days just ambivalent. Is rooted trapped? Is this thirtieth year the last I have to break free? Do I want to?

For me, the only real hang-up, the only loss I feel about turning 30 this coming April is the expiration of my first adult (10 year) passport. The first two I was glad to shed -- a portrait of a child, a cringingly awful and awkward moment of 16. But this passport is the story of my young adult life, my proudest moments, my most fearful, my most adventurous, my most selfless, my most selfish, my loneliest and my most gorgeously solitary. For most of my late teens and early twenties, my life was my travels, mostly alone and spanning 6 continents by my 23rd birthday. My passport -- beat up, stained, sticky here and there with immigration control sticker residue -- reflects those years in so many ways; it’s the old style, with an indentation from the photo. Laminated! The extra pages stapled in oh-so-officially, out of sequence and slightly smaller. The unassuming quarter-page stamps. The full page sticker visas. The extensions. The re-entry permits. The exit stamps. Perpetual motion, never more than stopping by, passing through.

Ten years ago I never would have imagined this life I’ve created now, its chilling and deeply comforting feeling of permanence. I’ve always enjoyed making decisions, big decisions, life-changing decisions. But I realize now that -- while clearly many of these decisions have shaped my life and who I am -- none of them were as final, as permanent as they seemed at the time, and this decision-making proclivity of mine has set me on a definite, increasingly ineluctable course. Good or bad -- it just is.

I bought the house that is sometimes my joyful home and sometimes the stone around my neck. I adopted the dog I can’t remember now not having. I accepted the job that challenges, satisfies and sometimes frustrates the shit out of me. I said yes to the proposal and will soon be marrying the only person I’ve ever actually enjoyed the feeling of depending on. The person who has -- by loving me truly and wholly -- redefined my whole conception of self. Of what I want my life to be, of the genuine okay-ness of the fact that my life will, in fact, keep going forward and never be the same as it was, moment to moment, day to day, year to year.

“It was my thirtieth/ Year to heaven stood there then in the summer noon/ Though the town below lay leaved with October blood./ O may my heart’s truth/Still be sung/ On this high hill in a year’s turning.”

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Emily McNair is a fellow graduate of Bard College. She works for a nonprofit that provides community-based services to people with psychiatric and/or addictive disorders, developmental disabilities, and those who are homeless, in the greater Philadelphia area.

Coming Home to Bravery: Sarah James

Sarah James and I know each other from our college days. On the cusp of 30 herself, she has been an enthusiastic supporter of this project--even giving it a shout out on her fantastic blog Yum & Yuk. Sarah is currently a legal services attorney in Oregon.
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A year ago I was still reeling from having failed the MA Bar on my first go (by only two points, my pride requires me to tell you). I was working part time for the Census in Boston, going door-to-door bugging people for personal demographic information, and spending my downtime drinking.  My diet consisted of a rotation between Chinese food, frozen potato skins, and pizza. This was not how I imagined my first year after law school. Don’t get me wrong, there were some great things too – a supportive family, a loving boyfriend, wonderful friends (many of whom were sharing the same struggles as me), my health.  But I was broke, jobless, out of shape, uninsured, and pretty despondent about my future.

I am 3 months short of 30. 

When I hit 29 my best friend (the one I count on for everything, including keeping me up to date on my astrological forecast), sent me info about the “Saturn Return.”  The main thing I remember, the thing that has stuck with me, was something that explained your Saturn Return as a time in your life where, if you weren’t living in line with your core beliefs and values, your life would go into upheaval to get you re-aligned.  To me, this is what turning 30 is all about.

Last May, after an impulsive, in-my-underwear swim in Walden Pond and a powerful pang of longing for small town life, I casually called a friend in Oregon.  He told me about a job opening at legal services in the town where I grew up, at the organization I volunteered for in high school.  Within 24 hours, I applied, interviewed for, was offered, and accepted the position. A week later my boyfriend and I started the drive cross-country.

To summarize the 9 months since then, the thoughts I’ve had, the choices I’ve made, would be impossible without boring you to tears. But, in short: the first thing I did was quit drinking (a backlash against having spent much of the previous year in a bar). Living with my parents (temporarily!), having no money (legal services), and being sober (for the most part), my social life was….real quiet. I decided to take this extra time to work towards a long-term goal I never thought I would reach: completing a marathon and a half Ironman triathlon. I began running, for the first time in my life. My now-long-distance relationship ended, tearfully and sadly. During the day, I struggled to try to learn a job for which I’d received no training, working with clients who couldn’t afford to have me f*ck up. I fell in love with a woman who shared my name, and a few months later she broke my heart.

And then I began the celibacy quest. When people hear that I decided to be celibate for 6 months, they mainly just think about the sex aspect of it, which is understandable. But more than just not having sex, it’s meant taking a break from the relentless quest to get approval from other people, the endless search for someone who would make me feel like enough. And then one weekend I decided to go to church (the church I found by Googling “gay friendly churches Oregon” – a modern spiritual quest for sure), and this past week, after 7 months of attendance, I formally became a member, with the blessing of our lesbian minister.

There is so much more to say about all of this and I, obviously, could ramble forever. This past year has been an exercise in both stretching my boundaries and returning to a place in myself that feels like home, returning to the “me” I spent my 20s battling. And that’s what excites me so much about turning 30, and the coming decade – coming home to bravery.

Am I always this positive? Hell no. Every day I worry my ovaries are drying up, that I will be “alone forever,” that my savings account will never be sufficient enough to stop this constant anxiety, that I am failing at my job every day, that I will never live in the same place as all my scattered, wonderful friends. But if I could survive my 20's – that dark, scary, insecure, brittle, self-doubting time – I’m ready for the 30's. One year later, I live in a small Oregon town where I work as a legal services attorney. I live with two friends, two dogs, and my first garden. I’m training for my first marathon and triathlon. I don’t drink or do drugs. I cut out most processed foods. I’m celibate, church-going, and sugar-free. Yep.

How Fucked Am I (Approximately)? A Graph and an Extrapolation at Age 30

by Dan Barry

Imagine a graph. Time is the X-axis. The graph is my financial net worth over time, which hovers between $0 and $100 for the first 15 years of my life, until I attend an overachieving all boys school and unwittingly mortgage my future. I do this because adults tell me it’s what you’re supposed to do when you’re smart. This swift plunge into the red is followed by an even sharper dip at 18, when I enroll in college, which is a foregone conclusion if you attend a preparatory school. The last notable feature of the graph is a near-vertical plummet at 20, when my parents, who said they’d pay for college, stop. The graph takes its one, brief turn back into the black from age 21 to 22, when I sell my soul working seven-day weeks for the same high school. Total fucking mistake.

Welcome to Dan at 30! I just crossed the barrier into can’t-pretend-you’re-not-an-adult on February 23^rd. If you’re wondering approximately where the Y-variable of the graph is at this moment, I would say it’s in the ballpark of -$80,934.83.

I’m in my room, wearing my pajama hoodie. Most days I don’t leave the house because I can write my newspaper column—that’s the job tens of thousands of dollars worth of education landed me—from home, and then on Friday $125 magically appears in my checking account. I used to make a little more. In 2010 I grossed almost $8,000, which is spectacular for a freelance columnist. I also made about $1,000 as a first-year massage therapist, which cost another couple tens of thousands in education and equipment. So basically I made in a year what most people spend on a used car.

I think the thing that concerns me most about turning 30 is that I am essentially in the same financial situation that I was in at 22, engendered rather directly by choices I made when I was 15—and in all likelihood I will continue to be similarly indebted well into my 50’s, at which point I will presumably be able to start saving for a house.

By my mid-60’s, safe in my home, I will seek a wife to settle with me. We will insist on homeschooling our children, so that by my early 80’s they will know beyond all doubt that I will love and support them whether they go to college or not. We’ll give them time to make something of themselves, so I’ll probably be just shy of 90 when my wife and I experience the pleasures and sadnesses of having an empty nest. This will provide me with the perfect context for a mid-life crisis, which, if I understand the latest stock scripts correctly, now entails buying a fancy car and promptly losing it in the divorce. Back on my own, I expect to enter my 100’s buffeted by lovers, hobbies, and all the drugs I didn’t do in my youth.

Around 110, the AARP will start mailing me, and my pension, IRAs, and Social Security will enable me to move to a nudist colony in Florida, which I have to admit sounds like a hideous idea now, but I gather that the charm of these things grows on you. I hope to die a peaceful death somewhere around 120, surrounded by my divorce-embittered-yet-begrudgingly-loving children, whose own offspring will in a way make me kind of immortal.

[Thanks are due to Katsushika Hokusai, whose formula on aging I shamelessly copped for this piece. And thank you to Johnny Wander, who first brought the Hokusai quote to my attention.]

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Dan Barry runs the Dharma Liberation (Store) Front with his best friend Arielle and makes affordable meditation cushions out of environmentally responsible supplies. They're inspired by the Dharma Punx and the D.I.Y. ethic, as well as environmentalism. Check them out online at: https://dlsf.bigcartel.com/

James Generic: Life at 29

I first met James Generic on the Internet. I was setting up a book tour for an author that wanted to speak at the Wooden Shoe, Philadelphia venerable anarchist bookstore, and James had recently become an events-committee-of-one. We corresponded about the logistics of the event for a couple weeks and everything ended up going smoothly. Less than a year later, I moved to Philly from Northampton, MA and found myself being trained by James one Saturday night at the Shoe. Eventually I joined the events committee and have continued to enjoy working with him to bring great radical speakers to the South Street infoshop.

James is currently writing a book about the Wooden Shoe and blogs about Philly sports at Stadium Vagabonds. Without further adieu, here is the first submission to 360 Months...
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I feel kinda funny writing this, because it feels somewhat like writing an obituary. 30 is not old, just a milestone. You don't really have any more excuses. You're supposed to have your shit together at this point, be ready to move forward. I still have a year and a half before I turn 30, and it doesn't really concern me... Okay, maybe it does. Just a bit. I used to have my shit together. I certainly did. But the last year was a tough year. I thought that I had it together. A long term, decent paying job. I was married to the love of my life. I owned my rowhome. I had it made by most standards. I am well-known and generally well-liked, with just a few enemies made over the years (fuck 'em, anyway).

But things started to tumble, as I put more and more of my energy into organizing and volunteering. As the pressure constantly mounted, my marriage was the first to crack--to the tune of many tears and wrenching of the heart. They say that losing the love of your life to a breakup is almost worse than losing someone to death. I was a damn wreck for a long time, drowning in a great downward spiral like toilet water sucking down the hole of death. Then, in July, my boss hit me across the face, and I quit my job, walking away with unemployment benefits assured (since I quit with good cause). Those two combined to make my continued home ownership impossible, so my home is up for sale. I know, I know, boohoo. A lot of people my age never ever had those things in the first place. Like I said, the last year was my fall from grace. I had a nice writing project to do, but damn, writing has a lot more highs and lows than a 9-5er. It was a whole lot of adjustments.

So here I stand, at the crossroads. My 20's are nearly done. Somedays I hit the bottle to stay sane, trying to figure out how to get my shit together. One of my core values is that I am pretty reliable and dependable. I think I have maintained that basic core. That's really the last thing I have left. I have never given that up, even if I am notoriously flakey when showing to parties or big social events. I'll never leave you hanging if we have 1 on 1 hangouts planned, and I have very rarely failed in my political work with the Wooden Shoe collective or Solidarity.

A lot of people just get their start at 30. Like a lot of coaches or actors or writers or whatever. Then again, life is almost done at 30 if you're a football player, as a career. Its all perspective. My parents had me when they were in the early 30's. Oh shit... that's coming up, if I wanna reproduce. Something that my 20's taught me very well is that as much as you want to plan out your life, it doesn't quite work like that. You can't plan shit. Everything falls apart eventually. Flesh rots, as do everything that humans build, eventually. You can keep it going, but its a race against time. Eventually it fails. Eventually we die. This isn't a surrender, but just a recognition. You have to keep trying to swim upstream, because otherwise you'll drown, and just become another floater.

But you know what? What about 40? I kind of look forward to being the dirty old man at the bar who makes terrible jokes. Maybe to some of my friends in their early 20's or late teens, I already am that guy. Who knows though? As long as I can keep drinking beer, watching baseball, and staying involved in social movements for a better world, I think I'll generally be happy and content. Contentish, anyway. So I don't have a career right now. I was getting bored with libraries anyway. So I don't have marriage anymore, and god I miss her somedays, but maybe I'm better as a single guy. So I don't have a house anymore. Maybe it's better not to be tied down like that (says the guy who hates leaving Philadelphia.) Sure, I feel lost a lot, feeling out the days, but you gotta wander the desert before finding the land of milk and honey, donchya? Or drown in the Red Sea.

I can grow a full beard now. That's different than when I turned 20.

Are you (turning) 30? A call for submissions!

In a culture with few rites of passage, turning 30 is still a pretty big deal. Many of us who are approaching the 3 decade mark are anxious about officially entering adulthood. Others attempt to embrace this development. How we feel about turning 30 has a lot to do with the extent to which there is a disconnect between what our lives look like now and our own (and society's) expectations for this moment; how what we are doing measures up with what we wanted to be when we grew up.

On April 7, 2011, I will be turning 30 years old and I want to hear the thoughts and experiences about all of this from my peers. What is it that is most exciting or terrifying about this milestone to you? How has the urgency of this looming birthday affected the ways in which you have pursued your life goals, your dreams?

I'm looking for reflections on this issue from friends and acquaintances who are either also about to turn 30 or who have done so recently: basically anyone born between 1980 and 1982. Submissions should be between 500 and 1,000 words focusing on whatever it is that is most pressing about this situation to you. Each piece will be posted on the 360 Months blog and in a printed zine version that I am aiming to publish the week of my birthday.

Get in touch now if you're interested in participating in this project, and e-mail your submission to me at: passionsandsurvival (at) gmail (dot) com. The deadline is Monday March 28th. The release party for the zine will be leading up to and on my 30th birthday. More details to come!

Thanks,
Matt Dineen