Thirty

I'm turning thirty in a couple days. I'm no where near where I thought I'd be by now. Sometimes life sucks.

As I've contemplated my life I've found the truth in some advice given to me. A good friend of mine told me not to get married until I turned 30. She said that women really don't come into their own until around there, and so they shouldn't make major decisions like that until then. She told me that your twenties are for screwing up and discovering yourself. It's not until your thirties that you grow up.

At the time that my friend told me this I smiled, nodded, and thought about what a bunch of baloney it was. I was 26 or 27 and thought that I was fairly grown up, and perfectly capable of making decisions. I guess I was just fooling myself.

I've discovered that my attitude is changing. I don't want to take care of everybody under the sun. I want the people in my life to act like the adults that they're supposed to be and care for themselves. I'm not talking about if you've got the flu, you're on your own. I'm talking about day to day life.

If I dropped off the face of the earth, how would you function? Who would run and fetch for you? Make your calls? Prepare your food? Renew your insurance? Do your shopping? Whoever it is, they can do it now. I just want to only be responsible for myself. I don't have kids, so why am I caring for somebody as if I were their mother? I'm done, I quit.

And this is why I should have waited to marry. It would have changed what I was looking for in a husband, and so it would have changed our marriage. If we weren't married then it would be easier to change the rules of the relationship. So if you're not yet thirty, don't marry yet, there's still time. And if you're not yet thirty and you're already married, then I hope that you two are like my parents and so happy with your choice that you're able to weather life's problems together.