Next month Matt will be turning the big Three Oh. We were talking about it briefly last night and I asked him if he is where he thought he’d be at thirty. His response was, “I knew I didn’t want to have kids until I was thirty, and then I figured once I turned thirty I might as well bite the bullet and go whole hog.”

Well, Penny, know that at least I wanted you.

I was thinking about it all a bit more, this him turning thirty thing, and realized how jealous I am that he’s there now and I’m still two and a half years behind. Some people look at thirty as the end of all their fun, the time they need to settle down and get serious about life. I see it, at least from watching Matt draw nigh unto it, as the real beginning of your life.

I mean think about it, so maybe you’re expected to be married, have a real job, maybe some kids and own a house? That’s hardly a heavy weight when you realize that you’re no longer expected to go out for ridiculous cocktails after work with slutty people who are just trying to score. You’re no longer expected to wear a bikini, or even come close to thinking about looking good in any type of bathing attire whatsoever. And you can completely forgo listening to pop music in exchange for the 80s rock you know and love so well. In other words, you can just be your regular old ordinary self, and suddenly all your attempts to seem “hip” really just make you look like a person who is not aging gracefully.

Take all of that into consideration, and frankly I’ve been waiting to be 42 my whole life.

I can’t speak for him, but from what I see Matt is happier now in his approach to his thirties than he ever was way back when he married me at age 24. He’s found so many things that he loves completely independent of me or anyone else. He plays music regularly with talented musicians, has found rock climbing and a passionate love for the food and drinks of the Spanish people. He is in his element both in his job and also on the weekends when he meticulously creates things out of wood. And soon he’s going to have a motorcycle of his own to tinker around with.

All around thirty seems like an age where you can be unabashedly genuine. If so, sign me up.

From Daily Daguerreotype

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 25th, 2010 at 3:40 pm and is filed under Daily Daguerreotype, Marriage, Opinionatrix. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.