If You Feel Young- On The Summer of 1993, and Turning 30.
My 30th
birthday began with me screaming in my sleep. That’s a thing that happens to me
occasionally—night terrors. I have a nightmare. Within the nightmare I am
screaming. The scream manifests itself in real life. It startles, and then
irritates, my wife.
I believe in this
nightmare, I was about to be attacked by an animal of some kind. After I had
woken up, and calmed down a little, I remembered what day it was, and I thought
to myself, “happy birthday to me.”
***
Somehow, my wife was made aware of the fact that U2’s Zooropa—a maligned, somewhat of a companion
piece to their album Achtung Baby—is
20 years old this year. When she mentioned this to me, I had one of those “oh
god I’m old” moments.
I’ve been having those a lot lately.
A lot of things are turning 20 this year. Movies like Jurassic Park and Free Willy. The list of records turning 20 is a mile long—Last Splash by The Breeders, August and Everything After by Counting
Crows. It occurred to me the other day that “The River of Dreams” by Billy
Joel, one of the most popular songs of the summer of 1993 is also, you guess
it, 20 years old.
A few days ago I turned 30.
I have a lot of memories associated with the aforementioned
things—so it seems for the most part, I really
remember being 10 years old. I think at this point, it’s one of the earliest
years that I have a lot of memories of, not just out of context sketches from
various points before 1993—years all blending together, etc. Some real Tree of Life shit. I remember my father
taking me to see Jurassic Park at the
small theatre in my hometown. I remember seeing the video for “Mr. Jones,” and
wondering why Adam Duritz was rockin’ out so hard in that fringe jacket. I can
recall not really feeling the first single from Zooropa, ”Numb,” (with lead vocals by The Edge), but by the time
the third single came out, “Stay (Far Away, So Close)” I was like, “this is
a’ight.” And I remember cranking the radio any time “The River of Dreams” came
on.
When I graduated from college, I received a card from the
head of our department/my academic advisor/professor of many of my classes. In
it, there was a bookmark with this quote—“It’s never too late to be who you
might have been.” It’s a famous quote, I guess, from George Eliot (that’s a
woman, by the way.) And to this day, eight years later, I am uncertain of how I
was supposed to take that. Was it just a “oh Kevin’s graduating and I gotta get
him something…oh here’s a bookmark with an inspirational quote on it?” Or did it
mean something else? Did it mean that she thought I was squandering my
potential, but that there was time to turn it around?
At 30 though, is there really still time to turn it around?
***
I had a lot of lofty ideas for myself when I was fresh out
of college. I was 22, living in a shitty basement apartment where I was
convinced I would freeze to death during the winter. I was working a shitty job
in Dyersville, IA (home of the Field of
Dreams.) After work, I would look for any excuse to not be at my apartment,
and I would frequent the coffee shops around Dubuque, as well as haunt the
library of my alma mater.
One of the lofty ideas I had for myself back then was that I
wanted to be a writer. I wanted to write short stories and essays. I wanted to
get my David Sedaris or Dave Eggers on. I thought I had important things to
say. And from this goal came another, even loftier goal, and that was that I
wanted to be a published author by the time I was 30.
In looking at this blog, well, you could say that dreams do
come true. I have written many things since I started this, and they have all
been published on the Internet. Or you could look at is as a consolation
prize—well you aren’t really published
but people are maybe reading this? Eh? Reading? People? Or you could say that I
did not meet my goal, and that it was pretty fucking stupid of me to even think
that up.
I guess I should specify here what I meant by published, because actually, at the
exact time I had this lofty goal, I was writing weekly pieces for a
long-defunct arts and entertainment paper in Dubuque, called River Stages. So what I really meant by published was,
like, doing big things. A book of some kind—short stories, a novel, essays,
whatever.
I don’t really remember the exact moment that I gave up on
my dreams. But does anyone? I think it was a slow, gradual thing. When I moved
to Minnesota, I took an office job at a college. It was awful. The days were
long. The office had no windows, so during the winter, I would come to work and
the sun would be rising, and by the time I was leaving at 5, the sun had
already set. When I left work, I was tired, and I found myself making less and
less time for any serious writing. And I found within roughly two years, I had
just lost interest in it completely. I would try sometimes, but then I would
grow unhappy with the paragraph or two I had just churned out. And then I would
just scrap the whole thing.
***
I used to be afraid of death. I guess to an extent I still
am, but it’s not something I spend a lot of time worrying about like I used to.
My biggest fear was dying in my sleep—that no one would find me for days and
the milk would go bad and bills would go unpaid, etc. I’m uncertain of at what
point I was able to let go of this fear. And for a really long time, I forgot
about it all together, because there are so many other things for me to worry
about or be afraid of. Like real
things. Not that dying isn’t real. Because it is. It may be the realest thing
out there. Like, it is pretty terrible to realize that one day; you aren’t
going to exist anymore. That puts a ton of stuff into perspective.
***
By the time I turned
30, I was supposed to have given up eating Toaster Strudels and Pop-Tarts, and
be drinking less coffee. I guess 30 is when you should maybe start caring about
what you eat. Phasing out Pop-Tarts over the last year or two has been
relatively easy. There’s gelatin in many of them—it’s something in the
frosting. Toaster Strudels haven’t been as easy, because they are so delicious,
but since we only shop at a co-op, and rarely ever make it to a regular ass
grocery store, saying goodbye to those has almost taken care of itself.
Coffee on the other
hand—you will more than likely need to pry a coffee mug from my cold, dead
hands. The coffee, of course, will still be warm.
***
What does turning 30 even mean? Does it put me in a
different demographic? Does this mean I have to start shopping at Eddie Bauer
and dressing like a herb? Am I supposed to be listening to NPR, and pretending
to give a shit about things so I can start conversations with, “I was listening
to NPR…” Does this mean I should start thinking about “the future”—starting a
family? Retirement funds? See, there are two very real things for me to be
afraid of right there.
While I’ve been an “adult” by society definition for a while
now, the thought of being an “adult” is frightening. Maybe I don’t want to stop
wearing band t-shirts. And while I have a fairly decent grasp of the English
language, maybe I want to start conversations with people by saying, “Ayo.”
Friends of ours, who are roughly our age, had a child, like, two years ago. I
remember at one point, I believe before their daughter was born, we were
walking on the main street in our town, and the husband fixed his gaze through
the window of a used c.d./video game shop.
I noticed this, and said; “You know you won’t be able to buy dumb shit
all the time now, since you’re having a baby.” I paused, and then concluded,
“And that’s why I don’t want to have a kid. Because I like buying dumb shit too
much.”
When my parents were roughly 30, I was born—I think they
were both 29, going on 30. On Facebook, I see people I went to high school
with, and they have children. And it gives me reason for pause. But it
shouldn’t. Those people are all 30, or even older, at this point. And having children
is a thing that people do. I guess. For some reason, I have a hard time
separating the person that they were when I knew them in high school, or in
college, and the person that they’ve become now. The person that I don’t know
and I just see photos of on the Internet.
***
At some point, I asked people not to make a big deal out of my birthday. Like
not even a small deal. No deals relating to my birthday were to be made. But
that didn’t work and deals are still made. I say no gifts—don’t waste your money
on me. Money is wasted. Gifts are given. It’s not that I am ungrateful or
something. It’s just that I just realized that the materialism that is embedded
in holidays—birthdays, Christmas—was something I couldn’t do anymore. I could
either buy said items for myself, wasting my own money, or I could live without
them. Nobody else should be roped into it.
There’s nothing different about my birthday than any other
day in the year. I wake up at the same time. I do the same things—I put my
pants on one leg at a time, I eat three meals throughout the course of the day,
I watch my companion rabbits do things. At the end of the day, when I go to
bed, there’s this notion that I am supposed to feel different—older, or more special, or something. I went into my
birthday this year expecting that moment to arrive, because turning 30 is such
an “occasion.”
Throughout the course of the day, I kept waiting for that
feeling to arrive. As far as I can tell, it didn’t. The sun rose. The sun set.
Another 24 hours of my life passed by.
Maybe the real problem lies in the fact that I am not
handling aging well—like the concept. This hyperaware sense of my own mortality
and the awful truth in the passage of time is nothing new and I am certainly
not the only person who feels this.
Also maybe the physicality of it. I started losing all my
hair probably like six years ago. Three years ago it was time to come to terms
with that and just shave it all off. My
bones are always creaky—if I’m kneeling on the floor to hang out with our
companion rabbits, it sounds like I’ve broken both of my legs, as my knees hit
the carpeting. Sometimes I will move the wrong way, ever so slightly, say when
I’m brushing my teeth and I go to spit out the toothpaste—this wrong move will
do something to my back and I’ll be in a ridiculous amount of pain for a good
three days after.
In contrast, however, as most people gain weight as they get
older, I have lost a considerable amount of weight. So I’ve got that going for
me?
***
I wish that I could recall the context of this, but my
writing professor in college once commented on something of mine, “Life is
long, my friend.” And in thinking about that expression at this very moment,
well of course she’s right. Time is funny. Not like “oh man I can’t stop
laughing” funny. But it’s just peculiar. Twenty years is kind of a long time. A
lot has happened since 1993—not just like world events, but also to me. Like I
was ten. And now I’m a grown ass man. So while it seems like the time has gone
by really quickly, because I can remember so many things, and I have “I’m old”
moments when I realize something of cultural significance is aging the same way
people do, the time really hasn’t gone by that quickly at all.
I don’t list my birthday on my Facebook profile, so I don’t
get the obligatory “Happy Birthday” messages from people I haven’t spoken to in
over a decade. There are messages from those who actually remember (usually
like five or six people.) There’s the annual awkward photo I take with my
cake—this year my wife wrote “Kevin Hearts Being Thirty” on it. These photos
will get “liked” quite a few times—usually more than the age I am. The cards I
received are still on the counter in the dining room. The leftovers from all of
the restaurants we went to with various family members are slowly dwindling.
The cake has been reduced to one odd-sized piece, crammed into a container in
the fridge. My 30th birthday was around four days ago, and I still
have this nagging idea that I’m suppose to feel something different.
I also have this thought—if I feel old at 30, what will I feel
like at 40?
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