I've been struggling to write this post for two weeks now. I started sitting in the San Fransisco airport, but didn't like what I was writing. Then I tried in the Salt Lake City airport, and again wasn't doing well with what I wanted to write about. Being thirty is a strange age. It's an age that isn't associated with any milestones, special events, privileges. There's been nothing since 21, when you can legally drink in the US, and won't be anything until 40, when 'life begins.' It's like a celebratory wasteland, which is surprising given that we've become a culture that seemingly celebrates everything, especially if there's a chance to make a quick buck.

And then there's people going around saying that thirty is the new twenty. You know who keeps saying this? The people who used to be twenty and are in denial. Thirty isn't the new twenty; I can't pull all-nighters the way I was able to at twenty, or eat the same sort of junk food and not notice it, or use the excuse 'I'm young' when I do stupid shit. I'm not going to be in denial. I can't be in denial, because the only alternative to getting older. . .well, it's not an alternative as far as I can see. I'll finally admit that there may be a grey hair or two (although I won't admit to noticing them six months ago). I'm half-way to being able to draw on my 401(k), although that's not saying much these days.

I had a lot of fun in my twenties. I graduated University, worked on cruise ships, learned to scuba dive, went skydiving, met a slew of people, and learned a tonne- about myself, people, and life in general. Would I have done things differently? For sure, but there's nothing wrong with that. I got over my hang-up against politics and started to pay much more attention to it, because no matter whether you want to get involved or not, it affects us all. I rediscovered the enjoyment I used to get from writing, almost twenty years after the fact. I moved to Vegas, bought a condo, founded a theatre company, wrote a novel, programmed a Cirque Du Soleil show. I realize that this list of achievements is starting to sound like a post from a couple ago, but that was talking about the fun, fucked-up year that 2009 was. If my thirties hold half as much stuff as my twenties did, then why would I want to pretend I was still there?

I'm still not used to saying 'thirty' though. It's an age that I never really thought about growing up. I had no expectations for where I would be or what I would have accomplished by this point, so I think that's why it seems like such a strange age to be. I always said I'd move out by 18, and get my first Oscar by 21. I managed the moving out kind-of when I was 14, and I'm still waiting on that Oscar. Come to think of it, that's as far as the planning went, so I think I'm doing pretty well with some of the other stuff I've managed to do. How many people in the world have been put on the corporate blacklist by Holland America Cruise Lines?

So why the lack of planning or expectation after 21? Is it because there's nothing from there 'til 40? And maybe that's why the last few years have been so up-and-down. As I don't have any plans of my own, I look around what everyone else is up to. Most of my friends are married, and a lot of them have kids, so it's sometimes hard being thirty and single. But at the same time, why should I base my goals, my sanity, on what the people are up to around me? I've never done that before.

So here's to being thirty. The decade in which I publish my first novel (and more than one). The decade I have screenplays produced, welcome my first nephew into the world (and promptly start the corruption process), visit the continents I've only seen (South America and Asia, I'm looking at you). I doubt we're going to make it to Mars in the next ten years, but hey, sign me op for that trip too. I've got the thinking before I speak down, I just need to think twice, so that's on the books.

Thirty is going to be good. Thirty isn't the new twenty, but maybe twenty wishes it were thirty.