Kiss My Culture

Blog: What Being 30 Feels Like

Like fuck, really. It’s not the number that matters, it’s the period when my value and worth to the world and maybe the entire goddamn universe is called to question that irks my living daylights. The thing is, no one asked, but it’s that time of my life when I sit between the end of my youth and the start of my hospice residency. The million-dollar question is revealed. It’s all or nothing. Pat Sajak and Vanna White is not gonna give you another chance on the wheel.

Experts call it a midlife crisis. Dreamers call it a “wake up” call. Realists call it a reality check. Optimists tell themselves, “EVERYTHING IS FINE!” Cynics smug and say, “It’s about time.” I call it, “What is this shit?” And I am 31 by the way, that’s another year deeper down the shit hole.

There’s a saying that goes: if you’re down, the only way to go is up. Yeah sure, but at 30ish, the question is what’s up there? Isn’t the surface the same place I was 12 years ago when I had no idea what adulthood was like? Oh wait, then I must have climbed myself out of the hole because I still have no idea what adulthood is like.

When I was 18, my idea of adulthood came from the Fresh Prince of Bel Air and The Golden Girls. You know, shows where you laugh at adults being adults. Since I couldn’t laugh at my mom for being my mom because she would probably take it the wrong way and throw me out the window; these shows were healthy outlets for me to find humour in very adult stuff.

Things like paying the bills, putting food on the table, saving your income, being responsible, etcetera were all topics of hilarity. Everything about it sounded so foreign; like it was spoken and dealt with in another language, another culture, another solar system.

Me: “Hey Joe, did you watch that show yesterday when the dad told his son that he should save money for the future?”

Joe: “Yeah I did!”

Joe and me: “HAHAHAHA!”

I was young then. Even watching adults buying groceries evoked hours of uninterrupted laughter.

At my age, you’ll find the older generations laughing back at you. “Welcome to where I was once, bitch.” To further the misery, you’ll find the younger generation laughing at you in true teenybopper fashion. So, you’re basically a joke sandwiched in life’s worst age -a sandwich that you won’t find on Subway’s menu because you are the least desirable for the young and old.

With that said, a midlife crisis is really overrated. The cause of its effect leans more towards its core: a crisis or an accumulated worth of crises which really can happen at any time.

Writer’s note: Wow! The plural for “crisis” is “crises”. Haha. Didn’t know that. (See, not much of an adult. Now finding humour from an unheard word near me.)

You could be a teenager or in the earlier stages of your life and faced psychologically damaging tragedies like the loss of a close family member, bullying, an accident, or an event that dramatically changed your life –a paradigm shift.

The thing with paradigm shifts is that you won’t really know that you are doing so. It’s a subconscious thing, it’s not a dance. You know you’re moonwalking when you’re moonwalking, but no one ever goes, “Oh look at me, I am paradigm shifting!” There’s no reality show called So You Think You Can Paradigm Shift?; which would be a hilarious show if you think about it.

But I guess on average, putting your money on being 30 with a load of crap to bear is a safer bet. You had enough run through the years to finally stop and go, “OK, what just happened?” and take it a notch higher by asking, “OK, don’t know what happened…so what’s gonna happen next?”

They call it: stopping to smell the roses. Really? I don’t smell any roses here. It’s like the world gone through a really bad tanning session and everything is charred and toasted.

The truth is that no one knows what’s going to happen next (here is where all you potential psychics and cons milk it.) And the sad fact is that our reference points are taken from both our formative and destructive years that have formed or deformed us depending on which way you see it.

Whether you are 18 or 30, have done a lot or done nothing in your life, facing crises whenever the wind blows, one thing that doesn’t change is that we have the power to choose. In your state of realization, the epiphany cannot make or break you unless you allow it to do so. And since you are already in a hole, that’s really the best place to build your foundation. The only way up is from the bottom.