30
So here I am. The birthday has come and gone, my age now starts with a 3. I believe I'm mostly through adjusting to this fact, but permit me this one last chance to bitch about it. It's what I do...
I know the gravity of what that first digit of your age changing can do. It gets you that much further away from being young or cool or any of those things. For better or worse, we live in a youth-targeted culture, where the heroes of your youth are replaceable, and eventually become outdated, irrelevant, forgotten, or if you like the Eagles or Kid Rock, country stars. Trust me, I try to keep up; I listen to current rock and find a lot of it still really good, and I blame the fact that sometimes I need to look harder to find it on the crappiness of local radio than me becoming "out of touch". However, I've also seen "The Simpsons" become tired, I've seen "that one" go from a snarky line my friends and I used back at OCC to a line used by a presidential candidate in a debate, and I've been around long enough to see 2 pop culture recyclings of the same thing.
If you don't quite know what I mean there, I've always had this theory that pop culture runs on a 20-year cycle. That which was popular 20 years ago shall come back. Want examples? OK... "Grease" and "Happy Days", 20 years after the original "happy days" of the 1950s. The neo-hippie movement of the late 1980s. "Mamma Mia" becoming a Broadway smash 20 years after Abba was popular. The fact that EVERY GIRL in my TA class wears leggings now like the kids did in the late 1980s. And now, 20 years after the neo-hippies... it's the neo-neo-hippies. Yes folks, peace signs, tie-dyes, and the like are coming around again... again. I don't know whether to feel old or to shake my head at the fact that there truly are no original ideas left.
Anyway, back to me (especially since I never was a fan of "Grease", "Happy Days", "Mamma Mia", neo-hippies or neo-neo-hippies)...
Remember my whole thing about working out and self-improvement from a few months ago? Yeah, I've fallen off that wagon. Repeatedly. I think I've been to the gym a total of three weeks in the last 5 months. I am seeing the consequences. And like many in their 30s with the same predicament, I say I'm gonna get back to the gym one of these days... you know, when I have the time. I am clearly no friend of the aging process and this will no doubt continue for the rest of my life. It's not fun watching your medicine purchases evolve from Advil to Prilosec to Gas-X. And I have a feeling that my warped take on things that takes up regular residence in this blog will go from whiny youth to curmudgeonly old guy in about 4.3 seconds.
My birthday itself? Oh it was a lot of fun (that's not sarcasm). Hey if you're going to jump into a new decade of life, do it in style. And as I did, do it in a way that results in not being able to remember much of the latter portion of the evening. So it is that I'm now 30 years old and while I still don't like it, for the most part I've accepted it.
However, I'm letting you know now that I will outright refuse to turn 40. Not a chance. I will do the Jack Benny thing and be 39 forever. Take that to the bank.
I know the gravity of what that first digit of your age changing can do. It gets you that much further away from being young or cool or any of those things. For better or worse, we live in a youth-targeted culture, where the heroes of your youth are replaceable, and eventually become outdated, irrelevant, forgotten, or if you like the Eagles or Kid Rock, country stars. Trust me, I try to keep up; I listen to current rock and find a lot of it still really good, and I blame the fact that sometimes I need to look harder to find it on the crappiness of local radio than me becoming "out of touch". However, I've also seen "The Simpsons" become tired, I've seen "that one" go from a snarky line my friends and I used back at OCC to a line used by a presidential candidate in a debate, and I've been around long enough to see 2 pop culture recyclings of the same thing.
If you don't quite know what I mean there, I've always had this theory that pop culture runs on a 20-year cycle. That which was popular 20 years ago shall come back. Want examples? OK... "Grease" and "Happy Days", 20 years after the original "happy days" of the 1950s. The neo-hippie movement of the late 1980s. "Mamma Mia" becoming a Broadway smash 20 years after Abba was popular. The fact that EVERY GIRL in my TA class wears leggings now like the kids did in the late 1980s. And now, 20 years after the neo-hippies... it's the neo-neo-hippies. Yes folks, peace signs, tie-dyes, and the like are coming around again... again. I don't know whether to feel old or to shake my head at the fact that there truly are no original ideas left.
Anyway, back to me (especially since I never was a fan of "Grease", "Happy Days", "Mamma Mia", neo-hippies or neo-neo-hippies)...
Remember my whole thing about working out and self-improvement from a few months ago? Yeah, I've fallen off that wagon. Repeatedly. I think I've been to the gym a total of three weeks in the last 5 months. I am seeing the consequences. And like many in their 30s with the same predicament, I say I'm gonna get back to the gym one of these days... you know, when I have the time. I am clearly no friend of the aging process and this will no doubt continue for the rest of my life. It's not fun watching your medicine purchases evolve from Advil to Prilosec to Gas-X. And I have a feeling that my warped take on things that takes up regular residence in this blog will go from whiny youth to curmudgeonly old guy in about 4.3 seconds.
My birthday itself? Oh it was a lot of fun (that's not sarcasm). Hey if you're going to jump into a new decade of life, do it in style. And as I did, do it in a way that results in not being able to remember much of the latter portion of the evening. So it is that I'm now 30 years old and while I still don't like it, for the most part I've accepted it.
However, I'm letting you know now that I will outright refuse to turn 40. Not a chance. I will do the Jack Benny thing and be 39 forever. Take that to the bank.
Labels: turning 30
posted by Dave | 3:12 PM
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