on the brink

I've shared this story partly on FB already, but thought I'd flesh it out in all its nuances... So this past Saturday I was buying beer at the liquor store. When it came to my turn the clerk studied my face for a moment. It wasn't a momentary glance, it was a study, a good look in the eyes. I was so certain that he was going to ask for my ID. I had my fingers on my DL ready to slip it out of its protective pocket. Not that it was bothering me, turning 30, but a little reassurance about the age would have been nice. I don't know what he saw in my face (perhaps a plea) but then he proceeded the scan the item through.

Not that this would have bothered me any other day (and there have been other times when I wasn't asked) but being on the brink of 30, I probably read way too much into it. We all have our little neuroses.

When you're 19, fresh in your age of majority, you look forward to being ID'd (atleast I was). It was a badge of honour; you couldn't wait to flip that DL out and prove you were in that store legally. "You want to see my ID? Here it is!" That excitement soon rubs off and turns into an annoyance, until you're about 25 and you quickly whip that ID out, feeling happy about it once again, but for entirely different reasons. "That clerk thinks I'm 19!" And then comes the day when the clerks stop asking at all. I don't know if I'm there yet, but time will tell, literally.

On a related note, I do say goodbye to my 20s in a few days. When I was in my early 20s turning 30 was the equivalent of the world's end of fun and carefree. Being 30 meant mortgages and babies and responsibility. But now as I turn 30 it doesn't seem like such a big deal. Probably because I already have the responsibility of a mortgage and a baby. I kind of dealt with the shock of "becoming an adult", first when we bought a house and then when Annie was born. So it's not as much of a shock as much as a continuation of something that's already happening.

That I'm not going through some kind of crisis surprises me because I thought I would be hit harder. Perhaps because in this day and age, 30 is the new 20. You're only as old as you feel, I've always felt that. Years ago a friend of mine felt old when he turning 25 and I told him that 25 wasn't old and he was silly for feeling that way. My younger self was silly for feeling that 30 was old.

But talk to me in about five years about how I feel turning 40 and you may get a different story.




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