30 isn't 29

After what basically constituted a 60 hour marathon conversation (with breaks only for sleeping, and very little at that) with P in NY, she noted that I have an "age complex." Totally, I do.

I'm 30, and it feels old to me. Or rather, I feel that my days of carefree youth are over.

It has nothing to do with my biological clock because I'm not clamoring for children anytime soon. It has nothing to do with marriage or a timeframe. It just has to do with feeling old. When I was 27, I felt the world was my oyster and the possibilites were endless. At 28, I pretty much still felt the same way. At 29, I still felt moderately young - as if I would be forgiven for any mistakes of youth I made.

However, at 30, I feel old. When I go out and realize that the people I'm hanging out with are 25 or 26, I feel old - if I recall correctly, I think I used to think when I was 25 that I never wanted to be "the 30 year old" hanging out at bars. When I look in the mirror and see the fine wrinkles around my eyes and on my forehead that seem to be getting more pronounced, I feel old. When I overdrink and literally cannot physically function the next day, I feel old. Or rather, it's not so much that I feel "old" per se, but rather that I no longer feel young. In my 20's, I felt invincible, carefree. In my 30's, I feel the weight of my decisions in life and realize that youth is fleeting...and mostly, has fled.

I guess this sounds a wee bit depressing, but it's not so much depressing to me as it is simply reality, whether people want to face it or not.

There are some amazingly great things about not being in my 20's: for one, I no longer feel the need or desire to drink/party every weekend, and to be honest, it's kind of a relief. But the onset of wrinkles and white hairs? BLECH. Can't deal.

***

In case I haven't told you in person, I'm moving to a new city in Asia that rhymes with Ping Pong this fall. I've told my family and some friends over the last couple weeks and have realized from their responses that pretty much nothing I do anymore really surprises anyone. I was a little nervous about telling my family because I thought they'd have a negative reaction (that I'm not coming home), but they were so non-plussed that I realized that I've done so much random stuff in my life that pretty much anything I do now, they're just like: "oh really? ok, well that's nice."