In which I make 30 look average.


So I’m just over here, doing my thing. Nothing major; largely breaking anything and everything technological, getting way too close to caffinated things, and sleeping. Probably slightly more of that last one than is healthy–I enjoy my sleep, okay? Stop judging. Yes, you. I said stop. Fine, then–don’t.

So I’m doing what I do. And from out of nowhere, my freaking twitter blows up. My first thought: okay, which 3-month-old blog post has managed to offend the masses this time? Because that’s occasionally a thing that happens. Apparently people paying attention to days I ordinarily very nearly skip right by is also a thing that happens. Which, also apparently, results in Twitter explosions that vaguely resemble having offended the masses (I speak from experience).

Yesterday, while I was doing whatever it was I was doing and probably barely paying attention, I tripped and fell over 30. At least I think it was 30. It could have just as well been a pile of clothes–it was half past too freaking early and I was maybe an inch past conscious. But at some point yesterday, 30 happened. And perhaps not surprisingly at all, I was about the 23rd person to actually take notice.

You go into these things figuring everyone’s got a plan for somewhere around the time they hit 30. Mostly because about 90% of the folks you talk to have had things planned out for when they reach 30 since they were 15. And the rest seem to have tripped and fell into a plan by 30 through absolutely no fault of their own. Then you’re off doing your own whatever, ignoring the world, and 30 steals your coffee while you’re in the shower, the rat bastard. And suddenly you’re sitting down to write a blog post on turning 30 while juggling potential plans for school, employment, surviving school and employment, and asking yourself if you’ve got enough vodka to pull off this miracle. Oh, and still holding a grudge against 30 for stealing your damn coffee.

I’ve had maybe 2 solid plans in my entire life. I’ve had absolutely 0 solid plans that actually managed to make it from start to finish without becoming significantly less solid, or turning into a sadly misshapen thing that looked vaguely like what I always figured my brain would look like after finishing a major thing 3 minutes before deadline. Not, ahem, that I’m the type to finish something 3 minutes before deadline. Okay so it’s more like 20 minutes after. Sue me. I still don’t have a solid plan–unless the fact that at some point after this thing posts I will be in bed and close to a coma counts as a solid plan, at which point, hell, I’m not doing too bad. I have ideas of all manner, most of them involving significantly breaking just about everything I can get my hands on–for the purpose of improving the thing, of course. Some of those ideas could potentially become solid plans. Some of those solid plans could also potentially not decide to morph right in front of me into some untaimed beast of a thing with like 8 lives and 0.2 weaknesses. But they didn’t happen by 30.

That, I figure, puts me on about a level with those career folks that have their hearts set on being in middle management before they’ll plan for kids, then they hit middle management at around 45 or so and suddenly it’s a hundred-yard dash to find themselves a partner, a doctor, and a couple thousand dollars for the IVF–because really, if you can pull it off natural like at 45 and not have complications you’re probably Wonder Woman. Actually that pretty much sums up my track record with solid plans right there–thus eliminating about half of that other paragraph up there. It bloody figures.

So without even trying, I’ve singlehandedly managed to make the idea of turning 30 incredibly average. Possibly even a little tiny bit below average. Definitely a couple knotches well above just plain boring as hell. And all it took was for 22 people before me to catch onto exactly what day it was. The kicker is I didn’t even have to try and plan this. But, then, what the hell else is new?


4 responses to “In which I make 30 look average.”

    • Who’s panicking? I probably still won’t have much of a plan by 40. But I’ll likely have a couple hundred more blog posts. that’s a plan, right?

Have an opinion?

recent Posts

Recent Comments

Archives