30 Days of 30: Sarah Berkowitz

Sarah Berkowitz is another one of those superheroes. Her contributions to the Wooden Shoe as treasurer, zine orderer, among other roles, have invaluably helped to make the collective what it is today. Sarah is one of the smartest and most inspiring activists I have met in Philadelphia. Hopefully one day we’ll carve out some time in both of our busy schedules to finally make that Hole cover band, that we’ve dreamed about for so long, become a reality.

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This weekend I went to the Chicago Zine Fest. I left Philly around 3pm on Thursday and I drove through the night with my partner, Ryan. I’m 29 now. I have been involved in zines for about half my life. Many of the things that were important to me when I was younger are still a big part of my identity. Feminism, anarchism, veganism, social justice, reproductive rights have all been a pretty big part of my life for the past 10 years. These have been my anchors when everything else was in turmoil throughout my 20’s. 

I have been thinking about turning 30 for about a year. It is on my mind a lot. Especially because a lot of the things I am interested in attract younger folks. It feels good to have experience and to feel grounded in that experience. But sometimes I crave more peers my own age that are interested in the same projects I am interested in.

When I was a teenager I never really thought about life after college. I had no specific goals of marriage or a full-time job.  I had little aspirations for life rituals. I spent a lot of my early 20’s crying and feeling sad. Things constantly felt hard- relationships, friendships, and jobs. I stayed in bad situations for too long. When I was 24 I got what I thought could be a dream job. I became manager at a Planned Parenthood surgical center. It was a nightmare. I felt lost. Every full-time job I had had after college wrecked me. I had no idea how to advocate for myself so I stayed miserable in horrible work situations. These patterns were mirrored in a lot of my personal relationships as well.

I spent the second half of my 20s making drastic changes. I quit my job, went to therapy, traveled, spent summers biking around and swimming in fountains. I started staffing at the Wooden Shoe. I took risks, put myself out there and learned a lot of new skills. Eventually I morphed into someone that was pretty sassy and assertive. 

I haven’t had a full-time job in 3 years. I’ve been taking classes to go back to school for nursing and working various part time jobs. I still feel weary about striving for a full-time career. I know that jobs are never going to be satisfying or fulfilling completely. I would choose not to work if I didn’t have to. What satisfies me the most are the projects I don’t get paid for. I like feeling connected to the things I have felt passionate for in my youth. I don’t want to give up my radical ideals. I feel a sense of pride that I am still connected to anarchism and feminism and vegetarianism. I have seen so many people give up on these things over the years. It can be really disheartening. 

When I was 18, someone told me that one of the members of the band Submission Hold got a circle-A tattoo when he turned 30. I thought that was so cool! Everyone gets punk and anarchy tattoos when they first get into it but to get it when you are 30 means that you have sat with these things and let them become a part of your life. You are in it for the long haul.

With that in mind, I have been planning to enter my thirtieth year with an event I have been calling 30 days of 30. I want to plan an event for my 30^th year for 30 days around my actual birthday on Sept 28^th. September tends to be a strange month and personally there have been some major losses around my birthday so I would really like to reclaim this time of year. I expect to use some of those days to get tattoos that I have been talking about getting for 10 years.

When I think about being 30, I finally feel like I am a grown up. I feel ready to buy a house and move in with a partner, to move across the country, and to think about having kids. When I was in college the first time I never cut class or took a lot of risks. I had a lot of insecurities.  I’m an adult now, so I’m confident that cutting class to drive to Chicago for a zine fest to see a Q & A with Aaron Cometbus and Al Burian is the right thing to be doing with my weekend. Cometbus zine also turns 30 this year. It was comforting to hear Aaron Cometbus say, “Some people have kids, I’ve been doing a magazine for 30 years.” It is ok to stick with what you know.

Falling Short of Fourth: Kristin Bott

When I was in fourth grade, my (fabulous) teacher, Ms. Dearing, had a "Shine On" board, which would highlight a different student every week. Everyone in the class would write a note, scrawling something positive about you and cover it in well-intentioned crayon. You would fill up the board with important pictures and "About Me"-type worksheets.

One of these worksheets asked you to draw a picture of you five, fifteen years from "now." In careful Crayola marker, there's a picture of me in my late 20s, which looks strikingly like the rendering of me when I was 15, which is closely related to "me now" at 10. Except: when I'm older, I am standing next to a marker-man, in front of a misshapen marker-house, and I feature a seriously pronounced butt. (Apparently I knew that girls' butts get bigger as they age. Dear fourth-grade me; they're called hips, please.)

By fourth-grade metrics - I'm quite behind on my timeline. I hit 30 next week - and unlike many of my friends and peers, I lack both house and spouse. (The hip-size predictions, though, are spot-on. We're a sturdy people...)

It has been a bit strange to watch the rest of the pack pull away in various senses, engagements announced and houses purchased, pregnancies heralded on the book of face and pictures of little wrinkly-old-men-looking babies triumphantly shared after the big day.

My peers have partners, kids, careers. I was always one of those kids who kept up with front of the class... and now there are days when I feel impossibly behind. All the loveable ones are married. All the serious ones have houses. All the dedicated ones have children. All the focused ones have Job Plans.

Kristin... you're doing it wrong?

But, wait. In between donning bridesmaids dresses and making plans for sewing baby bibs, I've managed to do some things. One and a half graduate programs and some number of stints as a research scientist (field and lab, both). I've been a science educator, labor organizer, non-profit Jill-of-whatever-you-need. Four states of residence since leaving my native Idaho; in each, I've gone from knowing nothing/no one to having community and some "sense of place."

Yes, there have been some number of honest attempts at long-term committed relationships (my own mother "can't keep track of them anymore"... thanks, Mom), with n-1 that have reached the end of their best-functioning term. And, not uniquely, one of the "ends" includes a messy Saturn's return timeline; just before I turned 28, I moved in with my guy-for-life and was teaching college full-time. Six months later, I had gone through a horrendous break-up/move-out and was concurrently working four part-time jobs - it was awful. By the time I turned 29, I had settled into one full-time job and fallen in with a new, fabulous partner (who is still around and still fabulous).

There are moments of panic, when I realize how behind I am - losing at the spouse game, the property contest, the job of producing and/or raising children, of having a single, focused career.

But there are also moments of satisfaction, sitting in my studio apartment, looking out over my home city and over at the mountains, or brewing beer/cooking dinner/gardening/traveling with my guy - where I can't quite imagine doing this any other way.

Hello, 30. You're huge, you're looming, you are impending doom and horrible bouts of navel-gazing. You are a reminder of all of the things I Am Not Doing That I Should Be Doing.

But... you also look suspiciously like other things I've seen before. Like other gigantic impossibilities, summiting Mt. Hood or running a half-marathon, job searching in a horrible economy or completing a difficult graduate program, that were overcome with a simple, calm, one-foot-in-front-of-the-other-with-a-sense-of-purpose approach.

Maybe you're actually just another year, and your significance is an artifact of our base-10 number system. I'm with Pamela on this one - there's a lot ahead, and you're just the start.

Dear 30, you don't get to make me feel behind. Dear 30, I'm doing everything exactly as I should be, including all of the rough spots and bad episodes. Dear 30, I still don't know what I'm going to be when I grow up or whether or not a house, kids, dog, spouse is/are in the plan. But, dearest 30, that's how this is going to work.

And - dear fourth-grade me, I'm sorry to let you down. But, with all due respect, ten-year-olds have a somewhat poor track record of accurately predicting the future.

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Kristin grew up in southern Idaho, a land filled with sagebrush and Republicans. She's lived, worked, and studied in western Montana, southern Arizona, and mid-Michigan, where she met Pamela Roy. When not busily failing to produce children, land a spouse, or purchase real estate, Kristin rides her bike early and often, brews beer, reads books, cooks good food, and maintains a decent garden. She works at a non-profit in Portland, where she lives with three houseplants, four bikes, and multiple rain jackets; you can find her tales of bikes, beer, and breakfast at: http://bikingpotato.blogspot.com/.

The Embrace of 360 Degrees: Matt Dineen

The 360 Months zine is here! Replete with the stunning cover art by my sister Sarah Dineen, it contains 30 essays by 30 people sharing their thoughts about turning 30--in 72 pages. If you are in Philadelphia, come check out the zine release event at Wooden Shoe Books at 704 South Street at 7:00 pm.

Here is my essay from the zine in honor of today, my 30th birthday. Enjoy! Also, check back next week for the rest of the essays. I'll start posting the remainder on Tuesday. Thanks for reading!
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Life really does come full circle sometimes. I guess this is no surprise since our lives are not single linear journeys of constant progress. We are on a continuum that ebbs and flows and our personal histories often have the pesky tendency to repeat themselves. Our current selves are an amalgamation of all of our ups and downs, and the journey we’re on is a complex one.

On the cusp of 30, I feel like I’m 15 again. Half a lifetime ago I spent the summer washing dishes at Nonnie’s Country Kitchen in Orleans, MA—my first job. I was paid under the table, in cash, to scrape the remains of chocolate chip pancakes larger than my face, scrub lipstick stains off coffee mugs, and listen to the classic rock station that the sexist cook would sing along to all morning. It feels like yesterday.

Actually, it was yesterday.

I arrived at my new job to discover an envelope in the back room with my name scrawled in full-caps: MATT. It contained a (small) pile of 20 dollar bills for my previous week of labor. After counting the bills, I stuffed the envelope in my backpack, grabbed a glass of ice water, and squeezed into a fresh pair of bright-yellow dishwashing gloves. Something was different though.

Instead of elderly retirees filling Nonnie’s counter (and inhaling her second-hand Lucky Strike smoke), there were tables full of people gazing into laptop computers, sipping lattes and eating pasta salad. Instead of AC/DC and Van Halen on the transistor radio in the back, Modest Mouse and Arcade Fire were playing on an iPod through the surround-sound speakers of the café. Everything has changed. But as I stood in front of the industrial sink scrubbing lipstick off a coffee mug it hit me that, actually, everything has stayed the same. In one week, I will be a 30 year old dishwasher with a college degree.

How has my life reverted to this, 15 years later?

It would be pretty easy to wake up on the morning of my 30^th birthday in despair that my life is not going anywhere; paralyzed by an internalized classism, making me feel like an utter failure of a human being. Luckily, I have dedicated a lot of my time since school to analyzing, rejecting, and documenting alternatives to the dominant culture that defines people by what they do for money, first and foremost. I have spent more than half of a decade now interviewing activists and artists about the dilemma of following their passions, doing what they truly love, while surviving in a cutthroat capitalist society. So I have thought about this stuff a lot. 

Over the years, when people I meet ask me, “What do you do?” the answer is always complicated. “Well,” I’ll reply. “It depends what you mean.” We are all so much more than our wage jobs. We are complex, multidimensional creatures. And this should be celebrated.

As I approach 30, I think back to that requisite thought exercise throughout many of our childhoods: “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

Is this it? Am I grown up now? At one point, I wanted to be a professional baseball player. Apparently I told my mother (who was 29 when she had me) that I would become rich as a Major League star and buy her a house. She lovingly reminds me of this broken promise every now and then. Sorry mom!

It has been essential for me to talk to people who have spent their lives redefining what success means—prioritizing happiness and community over the accumulation of wealth and power. This is also true of the aging process.

In my mid- to late-20’s it was really inspiring to talk to people in their 30’s who were truly embracing getting older. Actually, I have found that if you ask people who have passed the 30 year milestone, almost across the board they will talk about how much better life is than in their 20’s. So why is it then that many twenty-somethings in our society are so scared of this moment?   

I wear a pin on my jacket that reads: “Growing up is awesome!” The person that created (and gave me) this pin explained that it was in response to the popular subcultural slogan: “Growing up is giving up.”

In a culture that fetishizes youth and perpetuates “glory days” mythology, that teaches us to fear and misunderstand the natural cycles of life, embracing one’s 30’s is a radical act. 

The vision I have for my 30’s is to actualize all of the things that I talked about doing in my 20’s. I want to take inspiration from, and further cultivate, the best aspects of my youthful past. Simultaneously, I want to learn from the mistakes I’ve made, the low points of my personal continuum. This is not to say that it will be easy or that history won’t continue to occasionally repeat itself. My life will inevitably come full circle once again, but I am hopeful for what the next 360 degrees holds for me. Turning 30 is awesome. I am not giving up.
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Matt Dineen lives in Philadelphia, where he turned 30 on April 7, 2011. Contact him at: passionsandsurvival(at)gmail(dot)com

Permission Granted: Mary Tasillo

I met Mary Tasillo through our amazing mutual friend Johanna Marshall. After both growing up on Cape Cod, Johanna and I surprisingly discovered that we had become neighbors in West Philadelphia a couple years ago. I don't know Mary well, but from the various dinner parties we've shared in Johanna's kitchen I can attest that she is a genuinely good person. Mary seems to always have a really cool project going on too. I'm excited about checking out Soapbox, her new independent publishing center.

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I was a pretty early starter on figuring out a direction in life – not that I ever could have pictured present day Mary as 8-year-old Mary, or even 15-year-old Mary. Of course, 15-year-old Mary did not actually think she would make it past 20. She could not envision it at all. Perhaps this has freed me to feel right on target with everything I have been doing surrounding 30, since I had no notions of 30 at such a formative age.

But the pieces of me that encompass creativity, text, image-making, hand crafting, and a life surrounded by books were present early on, and coalesced after a fashion in college (by which point I’d figured out that life got better year after year and that I was definitely going to see life well past twenty). This sent me to graduate school at 24 to get an MFA in Book Arts and Printmaking. In a way this early clarity only delayed the floundering, because to pursue an arts degree is never to pursue any kind of clear career path. Which is how I found myself in and out of various jobs, interspersed with taking time off from working, throughout the latter part of my twenties, while continuing to make art, land the occasional residency, and present at arts conferences. At twenty-eight I landed a day job doing administrative work for an architect. Architects are workaholics. They don’t take any time off, and they don’t like it when you do (even though, as creative types, they like that you are an artist). By twenty-nine, I was plotting my escape from the day job for the architect. Of course, this was right after the economy tanked, and while I was very lucky to still have a job working for an architect, I was going to be hard pressed to get, for example, a job at an arts non-profit.

I’ve never been one to set practical goals. If I were, where would I be? You have to think about where you’d like to be and point yourself towards it. Thus, while working forty hours a week at a desk, and juggling occasional teaching gigs besides, I set a goal that at 30 I would make a transition into teaching and freelancing. Also, sitting at my desk one August day, I decided to start a community print space and zine library. I’d been talking around the idea with various folks for several years now, but had lost the conviction I’d had straight out of graduate school that I could be involved in making this a reality. I’m not sure what shifted that day in the late afternoon sun, but I decided that goddammit, I was going to make it happen, however that might look.

Low and behold, a few months later I met someone else who shared the vision of the community space. “Well,” we each thought, “I’m about to turn thirty so it seems like I can do something like this.” Permission granted. Permission granted to do big things and be taken seriously about it.

So at thirty, we bought a house together and started creating the groundwork for a community space on the first floor.

That same summer, at thirty, I landed enough teaching work to launch me out of the office job into the world of adjuncting and freelance. Maybe this is backwards, in certain circles, to be leaving stability and health insurance for something more piecemeal and unfinished, a choice of process over product. But in my view, the ability to keep the support under one’s feet while walking this path is a thing of beauty (if awkward at moments). Permission granted.

Thus, still early in Year 31, I find myself winding down after the inaugural event, a zine library opening and reading, for The Soapbox: Philadelphia’s Independent Publishing Center. Not even two years after that decision one August afternoon, the community print space is a reality – even if we are not yet 100% set up for community printing. My jobs consist of a combination of editorial work, teaching, book conservation, and art cataloging. And it is not the wisdom, but the permission of 30, that allowed all this to happen. (Sure, plus some leg work I put in through my twenties. The work, experimentation, and exploration I did created momentum.) Rather than serving as a benchmark, 30 has allowed me to let go of any notions of being finished, in terms of life planning and choosing a path. What a miracle to find life still getting better year after year, when 15-year-old Mary, who was finding life as an adolescent to be more difficult each year, could not envision life past 20.

Transporting My Dog on My Motorcycle: Brihannala Morgan

At the height of the gloomy Bush era, one year after the invasion of Iraq was launched, I found myself living in Madison, Wisconsin. This is where I met Bria Morgan. She had recently moved back to her hometown to work on the 2004 campaign against, well let's just say, Bush's re-election. Bria was one of the most committed activists I had ever met and was one of the people in Madison that helped me make sense of both an unfamiliar city and the chaotic world we were trying to change for the better. Currently serving as the director of The Borneo Project, it is no surprise that Bria has continued to tirelessly sustain her political organizing work since that dark period when we first met. 

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When I was 22, I set out a life plan: I was going to finish college, travel and work abroad for 2 years, come back to America, get my master's degree, and go work for the Rainforest Action Network in San Francisco. Strangely enough, that is almost exactly what I did. Yes, I dropped out of grad school a year early to work for the Rainforest Action Network, and yes, I traveled internationally for a year and a half instead of two years, but mostly I was right on the money.

Two things strike me now, about this plan. First, I seem to have stopped planning right around the time I was going to hit 30. Considering how detailed my plans had been up to that point, why did I stop? I wouldn't mind having that road map to follow right now. The other part is that I totally left out anything that had to do with relationships, marriage, kids, etc. And when I think about it, I have actually still only been to one wedding, and I have never been to a wedding of someone my age. Most of my good friends aren't even in long term relationships, which has to be an anomaly at my age. If I had planned a relationship into my life plan at age 22, would things be different now?

So, now I am about to turn 30, and it seems like a good time to take stock. Where has following my now 8-year-old life plan gotten me? I have had an amazing career, working around the world on forest activism. I now run my own tiny non-profit which I struggle to keep above water, but which I love. I have dated a series of amazing men, but none that I ever figured I would settle down with. I have cash, which is a blessing, and no debt, which is wearing down so many folks of my generation. In general, I have succeeded in those goals that I set out when I was 22. I am also happy to say that I have only gotten more radical with age, instead of embracing compromise, which I thought might happen.

But, call it age, or Saturn returns, or whatever the bejezzus you want to call it, I actually do find my priorities changing. I have no interest in “settling down”, but I would really like to set down roots, both in a home, a community, and in a relationship. This wasn't part of the plan at all, really, until less than a year ago. I really want a dog. But I also want to figure out a way to transport a dog on my motorcycle. Really, that is actually a perfect microcosm of where I find myself right now. I want a dog, but I want to carry my dog on my motorcycle. It's not easy to do (although it is possible... at least the in the literal sense). 

I wish I could set a plan out for my 30s the way I did in my early 20s, and stick to it. But I don't have the same closed-minded commitment to career and success that I did when I was 22. I do know that in my 30s I fully intend on continuing to work to save forests and protect the rights of the people who live on them. I fully intend to do whatever I can to topple capitalism, using all the tools I have, from direct actions to clothing exchanges. I know I want my 30s to be filled with dinners cooked with friends, as well as new endeavors that push me to be stronger, and more creative. I know I want to find a relationship that I can sink my teeth into, and I want a dog. And, of course, a way to transport that dog on my motorcycle.

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.

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. 

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.

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.