The big three... oh...
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I was expecting something to happen. The way people talk about it, I thought there would be fireworks or some kind of ceremony. There wasn't. I had a party a few days before. It was fun. Truth be told I'd spent so much of my free time preparing for that, I didn't really stop to consider the thing it was for. That thing, by the way, was turning thirty. It happened at the beginning of this month. It did so quietly, and without a fuss. Or fireworks.
Truth be told, turning thirty was something of an anti-climax. For years I've watched other friends panic as they made their own approach to this magic number. I didn't really understand it, especially since most of them seemed to be doing pretty well for themselves by then, but it was amusing to watch nonetheless. I knew my time would come and so I waited patiently for the panic to kick in. It didn't. I hit twenty-eight. Nothing. Twenty-nine. Similar. And now I've made it to that much-feared number without so much as a tremble.
So, do I feel old? Not in the slightest. I'm obviously older than I was in my twenties. But I'm always going to get older. We all are. Do I feel older? I can safely say no. I've never really thought about my age. It's a number by which I can easily work out how long ago I was born. I've never really given much thought to any of those numbers or what it feels like to be any one of them. I just feel however I do in any given moment. And right now I feel good.
To many people, thirty is a scary number to reach. I have friends who have reached it, and others who have yet to get there, who were (or still are) absolutely petrified. There are certain landmark birthdays that incite a terrible fear in people. But it's a fear I don't understand. It's not something I've ever experienced. To me it seems like those that dread such birthdays are looking upon them as the end of an era, rather than as the beginning of one.
In reality, however, to many of us it's not even that. I confess to being conscious that I've passed one of those milestones, but then it only happened days ago so it’s still fresh in my mind. But if I think about it, there hasn't been any major transition. I still work for the same company I did six months ago, doing the same job. I still live in the same house. I still get up at the same time each morning. I still have the same routines. I still have the same friends. In fact the only time I'll actually notice being in my thirties is if I have to tick a box for my age range, rather than providing a date of birth.
And so it is that I'm no longer the amiable twenty-something my barely-used and thus long-deleted MySpace profile once declared me to be. I'm now (I would hope) a similarly amiable thirty-something who feels more or less the same now as he did prior to crossing that threshold. I'm conscious that my next landmark is nearly a decade away. In the meantime, if you'll excuse me, I have to go and watch some of my slightly older friends panic.