I am writing this as a thirty year old. Younger, I thought it was important to find new truths with each passing year, or definitely with turning the big bold, round number like thirty. But today I don't feel like I have learned any new knowledge that has surprisingly enhanced my life. What I will tell you is exactly how I feel at age thirty and allow you to see for yourself.
At thirty I am, at one moment wholly content with my accomplishments, my family, and friends. Nothing in life could make me more happy. I feel like I am living the American Dream. I am, I just don't feel it. I feel it in my bones and believe that it is a certitude I cannot argue against. If I were to ever get depressed by the lack of my accomplishments I would brush it off and say I was being too self-indulgent or a whiny baby. I have done what I set out to do in my early twenties, that time when today, at 30, looked like an impossible frontier that I would never reach. But here I am.
Now, with all this contentment I feel, there is no easy way to rest upon this acceptance. That would be, somewhat, un-American. At thirty, I am hopeful for what lies in store, but also fearful that what lies in store is ten years of doing the same thing that I am currently doing now: teaching, raising kids, and reading. Will I finally write a book? Will I get a new degree? A new job? There are so many unknowns, and I feel like I am on the very edge of I don't know what. To be honest, I don't feel timid about it. I think at thirty I feel a resolute tolerance for that which I cannot yet identify or understand the form. Formlessness leads to form, eventually. There is nothing to worry about.
