There is some kind of stigma, some deeply ingrained idea, an unwritten rule if you will, floating around out there amogst the general population, that by the time you're thirty you're supposed to be a grown up. Respectable. Responsible. Reliable. The 3 big R's.
I've been 30 for 10 days now and I still don't feel any different. (I'm still actually wearing the same mask and clothes. (They are now permanently fused to my skin)). Don't get me wrong, I think that I am most of those things, (with or without the crotch hugging speedo's) I just don't feel like a grown up yet.
The title of this blog is A Mid Mid Life Crisis. I don't actually feel like I'm having a mid mid life crisis, infact I'm quite comfortable and happy with my life as it stands right now. And for the most part I was before I freaked out, quite my comfortable 9 to 5 office job, moved half way around the world for 6 months, learned how to brew beer, moved back and began my new career as a brewer.
I had and still have a wonderful wife, I was and still am surrounded by a great circle of family and friends and I had and still have a nice house in a city I love terribly.
I think that when they say you are having a mid mid life crisis, it's not the things that you have that get you worried and keep you up at night. It's not that you want to give up or change the things you love in your life, for me personally I'm quite fond of pretty much everything in my life. It's the things you don't have and haven't achieved that begin to worry you.
Unlike the cliched male mid life crisis at like 50 where you abandon everything that is important in your life, like your family and friends for a flashy new car and a trophy wife in a vain pursuit to recapture a lost youth. The mid mid life crisis is more about embracing your new found adult hood and freedom. Enjoying it so that when you look back in twenty years you don't regret anything.
Thirty isn't old, don't get me wrong. I still feel young and I probably will for a long time. But as I approached the dreaded 3-0, there was this nagging feeling that if I didn't act now, if I didn't take the chance, this would be it. I would be staring at the rest of my life at that very moment. I was always going to be working at the same job, doing the same work, in the same cubicles for the rest of my life. Mind you, this wouldn't neccessarily be a bad thing. It was a fun job, it paid well and I met many of my friends while working in this job. In fact I've had many experiences that I probably never would've if it weren't for this job. But it just wasn't for me. I didn't want to do it any more.
I didn't want to give up my wife, I didn't want to give up my family, my friends or my house. All of these pieces of my life were great and made me happy. But now that I was looking at thirty I felt that maybe I would never get to take another chance at a new career.
So I leapt. I jumped at the first inkling of a dream. Thus ironically proving that I was still terribly young.
The first lesson I learned after I turned 30 was that, you really aren't any older than you were the day before. Life isn't over. It's not disappearing on you. There is still lots of time to do everything that you want to do. Patience.
I don't regret leaving and going to Berlin for 6 months, but I do regret missing those 6 months with my wife. In hind sight, I could've waited for another year and maybe we could've gone together. But this is another part of getting older. Of becoming a grown up. Of turning 30. Learning.
And that is what this blog is going to be about. My first year as a a thirty year old. My first year as a "grown up". What I accomplish and where I fail. I've already gotten my first job as a brewer. I've already ran my first half marathon. I've already vomited on my feet and been carried out of a bar.
What's next.
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