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 30th birthday party.
Now, approaching that same mark myself, I wonder what my 30th 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.
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