I've started numerous entries with some variation of the line, "I'm almost thirty years old now." Apparently I couldn't believe it, although evidence was becoming increasingly difficult to ignore: the invitation to my ten year high school reunion, the fifteen pounds of unnecessary flesh that's been subtly accruing around my midsection, and an increasing bafflement over "young people" and whatever the fuck it is they think they're doing.
To quote a role model of mine, however, "It's not the years, Honey, it's the mileage." It seems all my life I've been looking forward to being an old man. As children we cannot wait to grow up, and first learn the perils of getting what one wishes for when we do. Most people look back in longing, and I am no stranger to nostalgia. Surprisingly, though, my subconcious appears to have taken the more logical route and looked forward for respite from the present, wishing instead for grey hair and suits rather than care-free summers and school days. I'd rather be the Tom Waits version of myself than the bucktoothed, painfully worrisome version I was during my adolescence.
Sadly, obviously, I've romanticized some parts and completely overlooked others. For instance, the perceived self-confidence and hard-won collection of life's lessons that older men seem to posses is something I've been looking forward to. The inherent, negative physical changes are something I, along with all the previous-young, believed would not apply to me. People have always prophesied the end of my enviable metabolism, and for years I have been laughing them off. Dietary doomsday is finally mushroom-clouding on my horizon however, just when I'd reached the point of actively reworking my style into one that doesn't depend on Internet t-shirts and the same two pairs of jeans.
Vegetarianism may have assisted in prolonging my unfettered eating habits if I'd stayed physically active, but innumerable circumstances conspire against our acheiving any constructive activity; it's a wonder we can even get dressed in the morning. My own inherent laziness notwithstanding, a two year old son and a climate of frequent, smothering humidty are chief among rationalizations deployed to half-heartedly defend against my own internal castigation.
I'm also beginning to suspect that the confidence and bemused detachment I attributed to maturity is nothing more than being too worn down to effectively care. I simply do not have the energy required to be upset by the majority of things that once bothered me, while trivialities now plunge me into a black mood. The aperture of my ire seems to be collapsing, and only allows successively smaller and smaller objects to come into focus. I cannot tell if this is growth, or surrender. Ironically it's a kind of sick, angry self-confidence that follows a muted ability to care, as the imagined judgements by those around me are finally becoming internalized through repetition; I no longer wonder if the terrible whispers of self-doubt are true or not. I have inundated myself with them too long not to believe them.
Through the years I've looked ahead with a smile of pleasant expectation, but as I get older I see people of all ages are unsure, unhappy, and making the same mistakes they did when they were young. Optimists will try to use this to their advantage, saying I am not alone, no one is perfect. I'm only twenty-eight, but these last two years have worn my optimism down to the nub, and taught me that solidarity among the suffering is as common as snowballs in Hell. Everyone is too occupied with their own escape to reach back and pull you out of the dungeon as well. History has made clear what I can expect: Living alone, while my child makes his own life in a different part of the country, with bi-monthly phone calls and visits even less frequently.
What can I do, if anything? One of the hardest things about writing honestly (especially about oneself) is remembering that it doesn't have to be lasting to be true. This is the truth right now; tomorrow it may be different, but that shouldn't excuse me from telling it, although too often I convince myself it does-both on and off the page. I'm marking the side of a sailing ship to show where I dropped something overboard, but it's still important to me that I do it. See, we're already moving past the point where it fell in.
So, what to do? Read, write, work, eat less, move more, listen to music, play with my kid, cuddle, clean, throw out all my clothes, cultivate my style, be kind, call my folks, get up early, sleep in late, surprise my girl, surprise myself, breathe, live, enjoy it.
-David
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