Today, I am 29 years old and will be for the next 7 months and 5 days and 11 hours.
Ticking biological clock? Nay, my clock is losing battery power after having been ticking aggressively for a while now. 30 is a big freakin’ deal. Really. And it’s 7 months, 5 days, 10 hours and 59 minutes away from being my reality.
Am I ready? No. Hells no. This just does not fit in with the great plan I had for my life. And yeah, I get the lesson – things don’t always go as planned, life is meant to be lived, etc, etc.. yatta yatta what what. Still, it’s happening and I have no kids to speak of… except for the cutest little bunny rabbit, Hip Hop (should we get another, he will be called Dennis Hopper), who is my substitute kid for all intents and purposes… Marc and I are in the process of buying our own place … to live in sin, as the old folk say… and I am still driving a shitty car that has me risking my life each time I get behind the wheel.
I do adult things – I have debit orders. I make grocery shopping lists. I no longer get asked for my ID – ANYWHERE. That last one kills my spirit. But, if I could go back to being a blissfully unaware kid or a rebellious teen who believed that she was completely invincible – then great. I could be that girl for a few more years. This, though – this leaving my 20s thing? Nope. Can’t do it. I joke about how I’ve been 24 for 5 years now and everyone laughs – their smiles laced with a bit of pity. “Shame. She’s delusional.” Probably. Most likely. But, it helps me hold on to my elusive “youth” a little while longer. Because 30 is scary and old and responsible and I don’t feel it.
I’m also in that difficult age where I’m a bit too old to be clubbing every weekend with the young’uns and very much too young to be going to a “bring your own platter and XYZ” party at a hall. I also detest family gatherings where the unmarried cousins have to go through a barrage of questions about our hopefully soon-to-be pending nuptials and our uterus. Specifically, why is no baby coming out of it? And of course, we work too much, travel too much – why haven’t we settled down? There are a ton of placatory responses… we use them to sate their curiosity and appease our own fears.. but what I really want to say is “BACK OFF!”
Oh well.
So, yes, good people. This is my countdown…7 months, 5 days 10 hours and 45 minutes. And then what? I experience a very anticlimactic 30th birthday… a watered down farewell ceremony to my 20s? Perhaps. Still… I must honour that spirit within me. The one that still responds in song or interpretive dance when the mood strikes… who can absolutely go crazy in a toy store, who begged and pleaded with Marc to take her to the circus a couple weeks ago and that sometimes, when she forgets that people may be watching, lives freely in the moment.
My Unfiltered life 