Thursday, March 18, 2010
Trente
In less than two weeks, I will turn 30. In Provence, no less, in keeping with my French birthday tradition. While I suspect excitement about the trip is part of it (how prescient I was when I decided to make this an official tradition 10 years ago), I am actually really looking forward to being 30. Thirties are solidly grown-up territory, and we've already established that being a grown-up is awesome. Plus, despairing about one's age seems to me a completely fruitless activity. I mean, what can you do about it, really, other than make some changes to your life going forward? On the whole, I am quite happy with my life (my commute notwithstanding), and therefore there will be no caterwauling about entering a new decade.
At 23, I was not so happy with my life (unemployment will do that to you), and so I made a list of 30 things I wanted to do by the time I turned 30. This was not so much a checklist as it was a general idea of where I wanted my life to be when I was 30. The idea was: "This is who I think I want to be; when I get there, let's see if this is who I actually am or even want to be anymore." I named the document "March 31, 2010" and squirreled it away in some obscure subfolder on my computer, willing myself not to look at it until the date on the calendar matched up with the date on the document.
And for nearly 7 years, I did not look at it. But now, for the purposes of this blog post, I'm going to cheat. It's close enough to my birthday--the fact that I got birthday stuff in the mail today from both my parents and Dave's is a testament to that fact. Besides, it's not like I'm going to go out and accomplish any of the goals I didn't get to in the next two weeks. That's not what this list was even about, anyway. So let's get to it.
1. Have a job that I love. Done! I could live without the commute, and I still dream of one day working at a magazine that people have actually heard of (though I realize my unwillingness to live in New York makes this somewhat unlikely), but I pretty much have the job that I went to school to have. That is awesome.
2. Start my own magazine. I was way too ambitious for my own good at 23. I never did start my own magazine, but I did work on two magazine launches. And I started the Saved by the Bell blog. That’s gotta count for something.
3. Be on the way to creating my multimedia empire. Waaaayyyy too ambitious for my own good.
4. Make a documentary. I made a two-minute video for my magazine’s web site a few years ago, and it nearly killed me. Plus, it was kind of bad. I’m not sure “documentarian” is my true calling.
5. Have a dog. I still love dogs, but I realized somewhere along the way that having a dog in the city means picking up poop. I am not cool with that. Someday if I live in the country, I may have a dog.
6. Own or have owned a convertible. The way this is worded makes me think I somehow knew my love of convertibles would be fleeting. Not too long after I wrote this, I bought my first car, which was not a convertible. (I couldn’t even afford a moon roof.) My goal now is to drive that car until it stops running. Or maybe get a Vespa—as far as somewhat-impractical modes of transportation go, they’re way cooler than convertibles.
7. Have had at least one very serious relationship. Done. Still doing.
8. Be as close with my best friends from college as I am now. Also done. We may not talk as much as we used to, and we may be at different places in our lives, but I know I can always turn to them for anything.
9. Have local friends who are as close and special to me as my college friends. If by “local,” you mean Birmingham (which I did at the time), then I accomplished this. If you mean D.C. (which I do now), I am well on my way to accomplishing it, thanks in large part to roller derby. Oh, and I guess it also helps that I now live in the same city as a couple of my college girlfriends.
10. Not be stressing out about marriage and kids. I think I was worried that when I turned 30, I would suddenly turn into a desperate woman who became fixated on getting married and having kids. I should’ve given myself more credit. If I have any stress about this at all, it comes from the fact that it’s now a tangible possibility, and that is kind of scary.
11. Have visited all 50 states. I’ve still got 8 to go. Truth be told, I didn’t make much progress on this goal, because I was more focused on…
12. Have visited almost all continents (Antarctica worth bonus points!). I’m not sure what I considered “almost all” at the time. I’ve been to four out of seven; I’m happy with a simple majority. (No bonus points, though. Honestly, Antarctica isn’t high on my travel list anyway—it’s cold and expensive to get to, which are two pretty big strikes in my book.)
13. Get at least one freelance story published. Done. Though again, none of them have been in magazines people have ever heard of.
14. Have gone to graduate school for something other than journalism. The further I got away from school, the less I wanted to go back. I think I was searching for that community atmosphere I cherished at college, and once I found that elsewhere, I realized that the “school” part of school wasn’t that much fun.
15. Have my students loans almost if not all the way paid off. Yeah, I don’t know how I thought I was going to do this and go to grad school. I do have one loan nearly paid off, but the other is still looming pretty large. However, this is the only debt I have, so I’m pretty happy about that.
16. Have a home that I absolutely love. I’m sure when I wrote this, I envisioned myself owning a house, but that hasn’t happened yet. Which is fine. I still love the home I live in…most of the time.
17. Be happy with my weight. Yes. Well, there’s this one pair of pants that I bought on clearance at Anthropologie, even though they were a little tight ($10 pants at Anthropologie! You do not pass that up! Ever!), and I would like to be able to wear them someday. But on the whole, I am happy with my body. Roller derby deserves some credit for this as well.
18. Go on a real road trip. Done. It was the first Excellent Adventure, and it spawned many more Excellent Adventures to follow.
19. Live in a place where I can have my piano. Hmm…I guess there’s probably room for the piano somewhere in my current house, but I’d rather wait until I own a place before I go to the trouble of moving it from Kentucky.
20. Become better at playing the piano. I think this was pretty dependent on accomplishing goal #19.
21. Not settle for anything less than the perfect bathtub. Ha! I don’t even have a bathtub now (only a shower). And I don’t really mind. I think this was less about taking baths (although at the time I wrote this, I did have the perfect bathtub and was really into taking baths), and more about never living in another generic cookie-cutter apartment like my first one in Birmingham. Which I haven’t.
22. Sing at a jazz club. It’s not a jazz club, but I had a chance to sing at the airport, and I chickened out. Too bad—I could’ve killed with my rendition of “I’ve Got a Crush on You.”
23. Not puke, possibly achieving world record for longest time without puking. An unfortunate New Year’s Eve wiped out this goal less than a year after I made it. But I have not puked since then. And now, inspired by How I Met Your Mother, I can use the tagline “Vomit Free Since ’03.”
24. Become better at confronting people. Nah, I still pretty much suck at this. But roller derby is helping me be a little bit more aggressive. (Thank God I discovered derby before I turned 30, huh?)
25. Not be living paycheck to paycheck. I’m not sure if I can consider this goal fully accomplished, but I’m definitely better about managing my money than I was at 23.
26. Know how to take care of my car. Not really. I should probably take a class on this. Most of what I’ve learned about car care has been gleaned through (usually not positive) experience. I still mostly feel like an idiot when talking to mechanics.
27. Be able to clearly identify what I consider my greatest achievement. What?! I’m not sure why I put this on the list. Nor can I actually identify my greatest achievement.
28. Not have changed in any fundamental way on the inside. This is another head-scratcher. In what fundamental way (presumably for the worse) did I imagine myself changing? Whatever it was, it did not come to fruition.
29. Be able to find this list. Yay! (I was really having trouble coming up with things toward the end of the list, as I recall.)
30. Have achieved at least one of these goals (other than finding this list). Not counting these last two, I have accomplished 12 of my goals (I’m counting the continents and paycheck-to-paycheck as good enough), which is pretty awesome. And the ones I accomplished are the substantial ones, like maintaining good relationships, having a great home and job, and being better at managing my money. (Plus, I haven’t changed in any fundamental way on the inside! Whatever that means.) There will be plenty of time to visit more states, refine my piano skills and sing in jazz clubs in my thirties.
In less than two weeks, I will turn 30. In Provence, no less, in keeping with my French birthday tradition. While I suspect excitement about the trip is part of it (how prescient I was when I decided to make this an official tradition 10 years ago), I am actually really looking forward to being 30. Thirties are solidly grown-up territory, and we've already established that being a grown-up is awesome. Plus, despairing about one's age seems to me a completely fruitless activity. I mean, what can you do about it, really, other than make some changes to your life going forward? On the whole, I am quite happy with my life (my commute notwithstanding), and therefore there will be no caterwauling about entering a new decade.
At 23, I was not so happy with my life (unemployment will do that to you), and so I made a list of 30 things I wanted to do by the time I turned 30. This was not so much a checklist as it was a general idea of where I wanted my life to be when I was 30. The idea was: "This is who I think I want to be; when I get there, let's see if this is who I actually am or even want to be anymore." I named the document "March 31, 2010" and squirreled it away in some obscure subfolder on my computer, willing myself not to look at it until the date on the calendar matched up with the date on the document.
And for nearly 7 years, I did not look at it. But now, for the purposes of this blog post, I'm going to cheat. It's close enough to my birthday--the fact that I got birthday stuff in the mail today from both my parents and Dave's is a testament to that fact. Besides, it's not like I'm going to go out and accomplish any of the goals I didn't get to in the next two weeks. That's not what this list was even about, anyway. So let's get to it.
1. Have a job that I love. Done! I could live without the commute, and I still dream of one day working at a magazine that people have actually heard of (though I realize my unwillingness to live in New York makes this somewhat unlikely), but I pretty much have the job that I went to school to have. That is awesome.
2. Start my own magazine. I was way too ambitious for my own good at 23. I never did start my own magazine, but I did work on two magazine launches. And I started the Saved by the Bell blog. That’s gotta count for something.
3. Be on the way to creating my multimedia empire. Waaaayyyy too ambitious for my own good.
4. Make a documentary. I made a two-minute video for my magazine’s web site a few years ago, and it nearly killed me. Plus, it was kind of bad. I’m not sure “documentarian” is my true calling.
5. Have a dog. I still love dogs, but I realized somewhere along the way that having a dog in the city means picking up poop. I am not cool with that. Someday if I live in the country, I may have a dog.
6. Own or have owned a convertible. The way this is worded makes me think I somehow knew my love of convertibles would be fleeting. Not too long after I wrote this, I bought my first car, which was not a convertible. (I couldn’t even afford a moon roof.) My goal now is to drive that car until it stops running. Or maybe get a Vespa—as far as somewhat-impractical modes of transportation go, they’re way cooler than convertibles.
7. Have had at least one very serious relationship. Done. Still doing.
8. Be as close with my best friends from college as I am now. Also done. We may not talk as much as we used to, and we may be at different places in our lives, but I know I can always turn to them for anything.
9. Have local friends who are as close and special to me as my college friends. If by “local,” you mean Birmingham (which I did at the time), then I accomplished this. If you mean D.C. (which I do now), I am well on my way to accomplishing it, thanks in large part to roller derby. Oh, and I guess it also helps that I now live in the same city as a couple of my college girlfriends.
10. Not be stressing out about marriage and kids. I think I was worried that when I turned 30, I would suddenly turn into a desperate woman who became fixated on getting married and having kids. I should’ve given myself more credit. If I have any stress about this at all, it comes from the fact that it’s now a tangible possibility, and that is kind of scary.
11. Have visited all 50 states. I’ve still got 8 to go. Truth be told, I didn’t make much progress on this goal, because I was more focused on…
12. Have visited almost all continents (Antarctica worth bonus points!). I’m not sure what I considered “almost all” at the time. I’ve been to four out of seven; I’m happy with a simple majority. (No bonus points, though. Honestly, Antarctica isn’t high on my travel list anyway—it’s cold and expensive to get to, which are two pretty big strikes in my book.)
13. Get at least one freelance story published. Done. Though again, none of them have been in magazines people have ever heard of.
14. Have gone to graduate school for something other than journalism. The further I got away from school, the less I wanted to go back. I think I was searching for that community atmosphere I cherished at college, and once I found that elsewhere, I realized that the “school” part of school wasn’t that much fun.
15. Have my students loans almost if not all the way paid off. Yeah, I don’t know how I thought I was going to do this and go to grad school. I do have one loan nearly paid off, but the other is still looming pretty large. However, this is the only debt I have, so I’m pretty happy about that.
16. Have a home that I absolutely love. I’m sure when I wrote this, I envisioned myself owning a house, but that hasn’t happened yet. Which is fine. I still love the home I live in…most of the time.
17. Be happy with my weight. Yes. Well, there’s this one pair of pants that I bought on clearance at Anthropologie, even though they were a little tight ($10 pants at Anthropologie! You do not pass that up! Ever!), and I would like to be able to wear them someday. But on the whole, I am happy with my body. Roller derby deserves some credit for this as well.
18. Go on a real road trip. Done. It was the first Excellent Adventure, and it spawned many more Excellent Adventures to follow.
19. Live in a place where I can have my piano. Hmm…I guess there’s probably room for the piano somewhere in my current house, but I’d rather wait until I own a place before I go to the trouble of moving it from Kentucky.
20. Become better at playing the piano. I think this was pretty dependent on accomplishing goal #19.
21. Not settle for anything less than the perfect bathtub. Ha! I don’t even have a bathtub now (only a shower). And I don’t really mind. I think this was less about taking baths (although at the time I wrote this, I did have the perfect bathtub and was really into taking baths), and more about never living in another generic cookie-cutter apartment like my first one in Birmingham. Which I haven’t.
22. Sing at a jazz club. It’s not a jazz club, but I had a chance to sing at the airport, and I chickened out. Too bad—I could’ve killed with my rendition of “I’ve Got a Crush on You.”
23. Not puke, possibly achieving world record for longest time without puking. An unfortunate New Year’s Eve wiped out this goal less than a year after I made it. But I have not puked since then. And now, inspired by How I Met Your Mother, I can use the tagline “Vomit Free Since ’03.”
24. Become better at confronting people. Nah, I still pretty much suck at this. But roller derby is helping me be a little bit more aggressive. (Thank God I discovered derby before I turned 30, huh?)
25. Not be living paycheck to paycheck. I’m not sure if I can consider this goal fully accomplished, but I’m definitely better about managing my money than I was at 23.
26. Know how to take care of my car. Not really. I should probably take a class on this. Most of what I’ve learned about car care has been gleaned through (usually not positive) experience. I still mostly feel like an idiot when talking to mechanics.
27. Be able to clearly identify what I consider my greatest achievement. What?! I’m not sure why I put this on the list. Nor can I actually identify my greatest achievement.
28. Not have changed in any fundamental way on the inside. This is another head-scratcher. In what fundamental way (presumably for the worse) did I imagine myself changing? Whatever it was, it did not come to fruition.
29. Be able to find this list. Yay! (I was really having trouble coming up with things toward the end of the list, as I recall.)
30. Have achieved at least one of these goals (other than finding this list). Not counting these last two, I have accomplished 12 of my goals (I’m counting the continents and paycheck-to-paycheck as good enough), which is pretty awesome. And the ones I accomplished are the substantial ones, like maintaining good relationships, having a great home and job, and being better at managing my money. (Plus, I haven’t changed in any fundamental way on the inside! Whatever that means.) There will be plenty of time to visit more states, refine my piano skills and sing in jazz clubs in my thirties.
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