Turning Thirty

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.