So, it’s happening. On Tuesday, everything is going to be different. It all changes, and I am just a little more than freaked out about it. For you see my friends, on Tuesday, I will be turning thirty.

I cannot believe I just said that. Thirty. Eck. The worst part is the answer I will have to produce when people ask my age. Twenty-six has a nice ring to it. Twenty-four has a youthful innocence but old-enough-to-know-better charm that is irresistible. Thirty sounds….well, old. And I am going to be thirty. Three decades.

David Lee Roth once said, “I don’t feel tardy.” Well, I don’t feel thirty. I feel like the twenty year old I was when I first moved here. I still do several twenty-year-old things. I still look and act like an early twenties something, so surely I must be, no? Wrong. Thirty. Ugh. I wonder what the people I went to school with are like. They probably have kids and disappointing marriages, you know, the American dream.

I will say that I am making a mountain out of a molehill here, because I have found that getting older is a lot better than I had imagined. I’m smarter, well rounded and versed, I have more money, and I look better too. But I have a hard time letting go of the guy who would be willing to live without power for a few days in order to spend his last dimes on some Canadian piss lager to consume in copious amounts with perfect strangers. That guy is so far out of the picture, which I used to be happy about, but now I’m just jealous.

I have a hard time letting go of the twenty-five year old I was running around the Old Port like a demon, and traveling all over the place to do my stand up act or play with my band. I was focused, determined, and most likely hungover. Now that I think of it, none of that has changed. I just have a more comfortable car.

I miss my girlfriend I had when I was twenty-one. I wonder what she and I talked about. Beer, probably. But they were good talks and we had good fun. There was a lot of innocence then that isn’t there anymore. Overdue bills, property taxes, broken hearts, letdowns, and just plain old experience have replaced it. But yet, I’m not the only one who has gone through this. Grey hair doesn’t happen, it’s earned. Despite my impending birthday, I still am able to forge a smile and be grateful for what I accomplished in my twenties, and look back at my experiences, and realize that I am quite possibly the luckiest guy to ever walk the face of this earth. I have had the most incredible experiences, met the most amazing people and I even tried to quit smoking. (I’m still working on that)

So what’s in store for my thirties? More of the same I hope. I hope that much of the clumsy jackassery that I am famous for subsides, and perhaps a family would be neat, but that’s a ways off.

I can only imagine. That’s it. What I will be writing about ten years from now? Ten years ago, I was told by someone at this paper (no longer there) that I wasn’t good enough, or that I ‘didn’t have skills’ to write for FACE. He was right. Somehow, a few years later, someone else decided I did and here I am, giving you in a nutshell, a living diary of who I am, over seventy issues later. Wow. That’s old.