Clockwatchers

Something in me changed once the days started getting longer. Is there an internal version of the bunker clock on Lost? Because suddenly I feel like I’m approaching 00:00 and there’s all kinds of alarms going off. Flipping the pages on my calendar at work, I realized that I’ll be 31 next month and for some reason this birthday is wigging me out much more than turning 30 did. Call it hormonal or instinctual, but last week I literally sat bolt upright in bed and knew that it was time to grow up, put down roots, settle down, stop dicking around, whathaveyou---if it comes under that heading, I felt it. And then I curled right back up in bed because the sucky thing about DNA-driven impulses is that you can’t play rational with them.

Turning 30 felt liberating and celebratory. I was so ready to be done with my 20s and all the drama that lay therein. Thirty felt youthful and vibrant, the embodiment of the term “young adult.” So how come 31 feels so serious, like playtime is over (even though I’ll be damned if that’s the case)? I never quite got why people freaked out about 30 but if this is how they felt, it makes a lot of sense.

Of course, the real fun lies in coming to terms with this development and not freaking out Lunchboy. Quite frankly, if my normally sane significant other came to me and started babbling a hormonal streak about life, marriage, babies, roots, etc., it’s very likely that I would get a little panicked. Which is to say that I handled the conversation very poorly. Everyone comes to major decisions in their own time and I feel really strongly about not influencing that type of decision with emotion. I know so many people who wanted things to happen according to a certain schedule and then were royally disappointed when it didn’t work out that way.

So hormones, listen up. Go back to your corner, be patient and shut your pie hole.