Turning Thirty/Old

4th December 2009

I was watching the 14th episode of the 7th season of the sitcom F.R.I.E.N.D.S- ‘The One Where They All Turn Thirty’, which explored how paranoid people, in general, get when they turn thirty. While Rachel argues, “I’m still 29 in Guam” on her thirtieth birthday, Joey accuses God saying that the Omnipotent had a deal with him, “Let the others grow old, not me” on his 30th, and says “You’re Chandler no more” on Chandler’s, and Monica blurts out a drunk-speech claiming she could do whatever she wants to, since she was 30, on her 30th… Also, Chandler and Monica, themselves thirty as well, present a card to Rachel for her 30th that goes “Happy Birthday, Grandma”, to poke fun at the newest kid to have crossed the barrier-of-twenty.
This particular syndrome finds mention in a lot of places. The fact that whenever a person turns any-multiple-of-ten, whenever the second digit of one’s age goes from 9 to 0, and the first goes on to become the next integer, one particularly feels a great deal older. Not that I relate with it. When I turned ten, I don’t think I was particularly sad, and I haven’t turned twenty (or for that matter, nineteen) yet.

But how would it feel when I turn thirty?
I guess I will be feeling down and blue. Most of my friends know how I want to die at twenty nine, for, well, thirty is too old.
Right now, it seems like an event that is due sometime a light-year away. It is too distant a prospect to be given a serious thought. Life, however, has always terrified me with just how fast it is. It’s so fast that a person is a child at a point of time, and suddenly he’s in high-school, and then in college, then he gets married, has children, retires from his job, and the very next thing he knows, he is preparing himself for his death. This, I know, shall apply to me as well. I will turn nineteen next January, then twenty, and then thirty before I know. I have always loathed growing up, growing old.

We all keep some targets fixed in life. I know I want to be on the top of the world by the time, I’m twenty six, and I want to enjoy success for four years, and then make a quick exit out from life while still at the pinnacle. But will I still look at life the same way when I’m thirty? Won’t I want to live on and enjoy my success, IF I am successful? won’t think of myself as an old loser, with nothing to live for, when I’m thirty. That won’t quit be possible? I will have the desire to live, to enjoy, even then .And for all you know, the messed up, laid-back person that I am, will I be able to achieve anything at all by thirty?

In the words of some wise man, “You’re as young as you feel”. I have an upper-hand here, though. I don’t feel older than fifteen currently. And I know for a fact that my age might render me old, but with my tastes and way of living life, I will never be too old to enjoy. I wonder what use that will be of, since most of my friends will have become too grumpy and serious with life by then, and the teenagers and young people will obviously not want the thirty-year-old-me to be a part of their activities. I wonder, I wonder what all that shall be like?

However, right now, I am eighteen, and I have a very good life, with the right balance of overwhelming joy and mind-numbing sorrow, and I have got great friends, and good education, and wonderful family, and if this blog exists till 15 January, 2021, we shall read this post again, and discuss all of this in a new light.


6th December 2009

I, indeed, am feeling very old these days. Only today I was attending the 12th birthday party of one of my only three first cousins, and well, I was made to watch Dhoom-2 with a bunch of kids, aged between ten and thirteen. All of these kids, the new-age tech-geeks, gadget-gurus had a unique take on every scene of the movie, and I was not only feeling left out, but also weirdly uncool and back-dated. Well, most of the comments they made were pretty silly, but still some of the things they discussed, and their way of looking at me with non- acceptive eyes made me very uneasy. These kids on the verge of stepping into their teenage, made me, almost stepping out of mine want to sing the My Chemical Romance song “Teenagers scare the living shit out of me…”