twenty-ninth year

somehow twenty-nine feels like the number that crosses you over to the antipodal point of life that you were just in.  you're no longer a youth, youngster, twenty something, or even young adult.  because let's face it, thirty is thirty, but who sees twenty-nine coming?  it's then that you begin your thirtieth year of life.  and it's kind of a weird one.

so maybe thirty is the new nineteen or whatever, but at this point you are fully expected to have a job, support yourself entirely, and probably be at least married if not already having kids.  you are now just an "adult", grouped together with every other adult out there who has not yet reached "senior" status.  you'd better know how to take out a loan, pay your mortgage, and the difference between a roth ira and a 403b (does anyone really know this?).

while a year ago, on my twenty eighth birthday, i was at the literal antipodes of DC, swimming with crocodiles and pretending as if i was on another planet, and while, since then, we have been living a very domestic lifestyle, somehow the twenty ninth birthday just didn't feel like an arrival at some opposite metaphysical place in life.

i often ask older people what it's like to age.  the answer is always somewhere along the lines of "i feel exactly the same as i did when i was twenty-five...except [insert physical ailment]".

sneaky sneaky passing of time.  you really can't think about it for too long or it will blow your mind like the spacetime continuum or how neuroscientists use their brains to study their brains.

well i'm going to look at the bright side.  obviously every year has something new to offer, some wisdom or insight that can only be gained with its passage.  as long as there is always somewhere new to go, someone new to meet, some new experience to be had, then i'm cool with whatever number represents my years of life on earth.  apparently it's always going to feel like twenty-five anyway.

bring on year thirty. i have many plans for you.  hopefully God will laugh at them and provide me with some great entertainment, per usual.