May 10th, 2009

...the relentless march of time.

Thirty. It is almost upon me. For most of my life I have snorted in derision at the notion of others quaking in arbitrary fear before their next increment in the "tens" column. Who cares? It's just an age, man. You're only as young as you feel. Your mindset only changes if you let it.

Doesn't it?

Irrationally, and with just under two months to go, I find myself oddly upset that I am about to cross the threshold of this magic milestone. The fact that generations before me have, by this point in their lives, been married, had children and paid off a good seven or eight years of a mortgage seems to cement my assertion that I haven't allowed myself to grow old and wise beyond my years. Yet at the same time it also instills a sense of dread that perhaps I've been irresponsible with my time and money; that I have somehow disadvantaged myself in the rat race we call Modern Living. That I have recently gotten round to becoming committed to wed a wonderful woman seems to imply more that I have been dragging my heels than simply waiting for the right girl to enter my life.

Of course that's not the case, but like a bad bout of clinical depression, the prospect of ticking off a new decade of experience on the checklist of life can cause a person to consider the most innocent of situations in an incredibly irrational way, and no sage words of advice can persuade me to think otherwise. I suppose in two month's time I will already be over the worst of it; after all, Kate will have gotten there before me and I will have tangible evidence of the lack of change in her physical and mental constitution. Mind you, by then I'll have turned my attentions to thinking about turning forty, and that is going to be an apocalypse. You mark my words...