the perils of turning 30
Okay. New commitment. I will blog once week beginning now.
I have been listening to and watching a lot of Nirvana’s music lately. It comes in strong waves for me. I won’t listen to them for months and then I HAVE to listening to them ALL THE TIME. There is a romanticism and an idealism to Kurt Cobain that I have always admired. It is painful to think about sometimes: he was a tortured artist that could never quite untangle himself from that.
This seems like a problem you can live with through your twenties, but once you hit thirty you should have grown out of it. Maybe that is the fear of turning thirty; that upon reaching that age you are supposed to have it all figured out, that you aren’t allowed any more mistakes. At not-quite-29 I have only just begun to think about this. I hope, and am planning on, being at an elevated place in the year plus I have until 30. I don’t think I am afraid or shamed about reaching the age. It is good to reach milestones only when you allow yourself to reflect back and plan ahead. What is the cliché, ‘the end is a beginning’? There are a few things I want to adjust rather than change, and I know if I start now by next summer I will have everything corrected.
The other part of 30 (the one that I think about maybe the most) is the idea of family, kids, ect. I am by no means looking to settle down, but it is the age of that. Friends are engaged or in serious relationships. The bars hold 22 or 23 years olds who are a little creeped out when you tell them your age. This happened to me a year or so ago. I was at this bar dancing with this girl. We had a few drinks and were getting along well. After the second drink she asked me how old I was. I told her 27…she was 22. Now I will never believe in the gapping distance of five years. My grandfather and grandmother were 17 years apart and it has always been my thought that is how my life will turn out. But this girl freaked out a little. Did she think I was younger? Was she really appalled by the differences in age? That seemed to be the catalyst for her leaving, and with her not returning it was all I was left with to make a conclusion. Safe to say I haven’t talked to many girls in bars since. (which is probably not a bad thing).
I have been listening/watching Nirvana’s Live and Loud while writing this. It is a concert that was on MTV in 1993 or something, when In Utero was released. Always searching, never really finding, connecting but never able to stay connected, afraid of failure, shamed by success. A neurotic’s, artist’s, landscape. I can relate.
“I’m so tired i can’t sleep” pennyroyal tea – nirvana
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