30. Now what.

I'm fairly convinced 30 is the beginning of true adulthood.

I just turned on a song that somehow brought up some emotions/memories from my early twenties. I first thought of the simple joys of being child. Those sweet moments of simplicity and contentment, free of ambition or want. Just being. I also remembered my very early twenties when I caught a glimpse of the end of childhood and the beginning of adulthood. There is a certain sadness in losing your youth, but I remember thinking of the beauty of the depth ahead of me in realizing the enormity of what it is to explore and experience adulthood. You leave many childhood experiences behind, sadly, but you begin to step into the depth of what is truly available to us in life - through the pain and depth of what it is to be human you begin to understand the true cost of joy and beauty, pain and suffering, contentment and desire.

I also just now had a flash of my 20s as a whole. Our 20s are an odd decade. Some experience wild early success. Some dredge on in the struggle. Many of us exist here in some kind of in-between stage of wantonness. In some ways it's a time when we step out of the front stoop and the sun begins to beet down upon half of our body, half still in the doorway. We begin to understand a bit of what the world is, but half of our being still has a foot on that familiar hardwood floor. We project the dreams of our youth into that ray of light and wonder what it will bring. This is our 20s.

At 30, I now feel I am beginning to feel that second foot leave that hardwood floor and fully join the other on the pavement. Idealism must meet reality. Upbringing confronts experiences and mistakes. Hope meets the past and you begin to equalize.

There still exists a huge journey ahead, but I begin to feel the shackles and scales of false premonitions and shallow desires fall away. At 30, I think many of us finally realize I am no longer home and I must understand what my new home will be. It cannot be what others say it must be. It cannot be what I thought it may be. It must be what I know it now to be. I am now standing on that stoop facing the world and it is all before me. I am one man. I have gained and I have lost. Everything is potential or kinetic - I must become kinetic.

Written: October 15, 2011