Waxing philosophical on turning 30

Today I’m thirty years-old.

It is weird feeling to hit these milestone birthdays and you are really forced to assess the last ten years of your life or more. I feel far more unsettled this birthday than any other. I’m sure everyone feels this way when they turn 30, so I will not presume to assume that my thoughts are relevant in any broader sense than coming to terms with my own – apparently – deep unease with this date.

My twenties were really good to me. I did a lot of what I wanted to do with my life in those years and I’m pretty proud of that. I’ve really tried to make my life one that I look back on and say to myself that I am happy with how it’s been. Making the minutes count.

When I turned 20, I was living at 50 Anderson Place in Morgantown – the bottom floor of an old house behind a church and a parking lot off of Spruce St. My friends and I had a “Pimp & Ho” party that night and a bunch of people came over to hang out. It was a lot of fun. I had a terribly ugly pink (2 shades of pink) polyester dress that I wore and some of the other people dressed up too. Who was there…? Dawson, Azweem, Jason, Crissy, Bryan, Tyson, Holly H.,…I think Chris Haase and Natalie were there (on a visit from Wisconsin) too! I miss all you guys. Whitney were you there? I can’t remember…Later parties, yes, but not sure about that one.

In January of my 20th year, I went to Germany and traveled around Europe. This set a lot of things in place for me, event though I do absolutely nothing with German now. I gained a whole new perspective on my life and resolving to make sure to experience things while I can.

I have to mention here that I wish british Bryan Thyer a very happy birthday as well as today is also his 30th birthday. Bryan was a friend on mine I met in Germany and by some strange coincidence had the same birthday and year as myself.

Speaking of friends with the same birthday…My dear friend Amy ALSO has a birthday today! It is great to share the day with such a wonderful friend. We actually met on our birthday 7 years ago. The Violent Femmes were playing in Morgantown for FallFest that night. (Whitney I know you were there then!)

Three years ago on our birthday, Amy and I were sitting on the porch of the house in South Park where Steve and I were living, drinking a bottle of wine and my neighbor across the street came home. He greeted us and we told him we were celebrating our birthday and he exclaimed “It’s my birthday too!” and brought us a special bottle of wine that his friends who own the Forks of Cheat winery make. The label featured a painting that my neighbor had in his house.

OF course, you also know that today is Sean Connery’s birthday…I think August 25, must be pretty dang special. =)

But yeah… my 20s…

After I came home from Germany, started doing web design (age 21), started consulting on my own (age 22), met Steve, graduated, got a real job, visited Europe alone for 4 weeks (age 23), got married and took a trip to Iceland, Germany and the Netherlands with Steve (age 25), started grad school while working full time (age 26), helped move Steve’s parents cross-country then moved Steve and myself home with mom (age 27), changed jobs AND started teaching (age 28)…got pregnant/having a baby (age 29-30).

Not a bad run.

What do the next 10 years have in store?