Drift Reality

It has been almost two months since I turned 30 and I think I have finally started to accept my age.

A funny thing happens when you are closing in on 30 - you start to feel a sense of desperation because you don’t think you have accomplished all the things you set out to accomplish by the time you are 30 and that sense of desperation crescendos until you hit the magic number and suddenly you realize that everything is okay.

You realize you are not going to write the next great American novel and that is okay.

You realize that you are not going to be a Hollywood star and that is okay.

You realize you are not going to be rich and famous and that is okay (unless you are in fact rich and famous).

You realize you are not going to be in a fulfilling marriage with a beautiful kid on the way and that is okay.

Once you have turned 30 you realize that you are basically the same person you were at 29 except one-year older and that is okay.

I have gone through a litany of failures in my life. In some ways, my life has been a string of almost-successes that dates back to my childhood.

I almost was the starting Quarterback but wasn’t.

I almost went to Harvard but didn’t.

I almost got into UCLA film school but didn’t.

I almost became a diplomat but didn’t.

I actually could go on but I don’t want to waver off-course by taking inventory of my failures in life. I could probably go on for a while but the point of me writing all of these down is that from the time I learned how to say “I want,” I simultaneously learned to understand that “It isn’t going to happen the way I want.”

That same question-and-answer repeats itself throughout your entire life and starts to amplify when you graduate from College. Most people manage to drown it out through a combination of alcohol, sex and other forms of miscellaneous escapism (I played a lot of video games for instance) right after university or high school, but it builds inexorably.

Silently in the background, those failures keep stacking up throughout your twenties and add to an underlying sense of urgent desperation that no one is exempt from - or rather almost no one.

See, I have talked with attorneys, bankers and doctors who were miserable throughout their twenties just like I have talked with construction workers, local government employees and service industry professionals who were miserable throughout their twenties. People are just miserable about different things and it all comes back to the same question-and-answer.

Can I have this?

No, you can’t have that OR yes, you can have it but you are going to get that and a whole lot more than you bargained for and what you will end up with will be nothing like what you expected.

Then, when you turn 30 suddenly you cease to ask that question (or maybe it goes silent again - waiting to strike). At least, I think that question has ceased in my mind.

I have come to grips with the fact that I am not married. I have come to grips with the fact that I am not going to be an astronaut or a professional athlete. What I have not come to grips with is the notion that I won’t be successful at something - it will just not be something that I expected originally.

So to all the thirty-year-olds out there, it is a pleasure to join you in our collective state of acceptance. For those of you who have accomplished everything you set out to accomplish, congratulations. To all the twenty-year-olds that are freaking out about becoming thirty-year-olds, quit your whining because things will get better.

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