“Your face and body still look twenty-five. But there’s something in your eyes that says ‘thirty’…”
“…TEARS, I think they’re called. Happy Birthday.”
That was the $2.49 Hallmark sentiment that my sister mailed to me in cynical celebration of my 30th birthday last week. The sentiment was understandable, coming from someone entering her mid-20s. The cynicism was expected, being that we were both born in New Jersey, where unrestrained mockery is practically a requirement for citizenship.
“How does it feel to be 30?” is a question that’s been posed to me numerous times since my birthday. Perhaps it’s out of custom, perhaps it’s out of concerned curiosity — it always seems to be people younger than I who are asking it.
My response is sincere and completely anti-climatic: It doesn’t feel any different than 29. Or 28. I’m a little fuzzy on how 27 felt; maybe that’s how 30 feels.
Should I feel old? American society promotes postponed maturity. Fifty is the new 40, they say, and 40 is the new 30. Therefore, 30 is the new 20, and 20 is the new 10 … which means any of my friends involved with college-aged women have some serious explaining to do.
Numbers — of which age ain’t nothing but — have never served as the determining factors for my emotional condition. I prefer milestones: graduating from high school, and then college; getting my first job and my first wife; getting my second job and my last wife; finding my 14th gray hair.
None of these events have made me feel the crush of passing years.
I imagine I’ll experience that sensation when I’m helping to raise our first child, or when I have my first regularly scheduled proctologic exam — what is it about pains in the you-know-where that make a guy feel ancient?
(And if I ever see acid-wash jeans and parachute pants have made a comeback, or that the series finale of “The Simpsons” has been scheduled, I may just voluntarily check into a nursing home.)
For now, I feel like a kid, and that’s because I am one: I’m blessed to have both of my parents with me.
Just the other day, my 60-year-old father tried to muscle in on my bachelor party weekend in Atlantic City this summer. I told him that I may be 30 years old, but I’m still his son: There will be sights, sounds and smells that I do not want him there to witness.
It’s the same reason, I reminded him, why I’ve never traveled to New York City to hang out with him in that saloon he frequents — the one where the honky-tonk barmaids dance on the tables every night while pouring shots.
My dad’s begrudging, slightly uncomfortable agreement told me everything I needed to know: That perhaps, on some nights, 60 can also be the new 20.
Now there’s something to celebrate.
<1b>— Greg Wyshynski