On Turning 30, Two Weeks Late
This September, the Hebrew Calendar started the new year of 5767, and I passed the far more humble but perhaps personally more significant 30th Birthday. That it's taken me fifteen days to make mention of this shouldn't be taken as frustration at growing older. Unlike many people, hitting the 30 year-old milestone does not depress me. Of the many things I potentially become neurotic about, growing older is not one of them.
Why should I? In thirty years, I've managed to do quite a bit. I've lived and traveled around the world--Japan, Russia, China, Italy, Canada. I spent three years in the Peace Corps trying to do my bit to make the world a better place. I earned two master's degrees. And I not only found somebody to love and be loved by, but I've even managed to be able to live with him. As the sun rises and fills our 25th floor apartment with light and warmth, I can't help but think that this is a good place to be at thirty.
There are some things that have left me depressed over the past couple of months. Not having a job is the first and foremost problem. After seven months, my professional fortunes in Toronto have not changed. It's a bit disheartening to look at my friends and classmates who at my age already have well-established careers, houses and even children--and then to think that I'm still just starting. This makes me a youthful 30, I suppose, since until now I'd felt like the perpetual student. But, dammit, I'm ready to grow up!
What is encouraging now is the definite change in fortunes that seems to be occurring in Toronto. This has been an unusually hard city for us to break into. People are friendly but closed, making it difficult to meet new friends. But since mid-August, we have slowly started to develop a network of friends (almost all of whom are not native to Toronto), and that has been probably the best birthday gift of all. Hitting thirty with no one to share a cake with is not much fun. Luckily, we had at least a couple of people who gave me the gift of eating cake on my birthday.
So another day, another Monday, another Jewish New Year, and it's time to move forward so that this decade will be even better than the last.
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