So, yesterday was my birthday (that’s right, folks, and anyone who didn’t wish me a Happy Birthday on Facebook or Myspace, you’ve been subsequently deleted!) and I turned thirty years old (nifty title, right). Many people asked me the obvious question of how it feels to turn thirty.
Well, here’s my answer.
My first decade, I barely remember (my mother has a minute-by-minute synopsis in case anyone is interested). We lived in a house in Oak Lawn, Illinois on like 92nd off of Cicero Ave. My memory of the house was that it was really big and green, though when I went back several years ago, it turned out to be average-sized and yellow and brown. The bushes where I kissed a girl the first time (Candace, who was a year older–always had a thing for older women) and saw two girls kiss for the first time (Candace and the girl across the street, whose name escapes me, but she had red hair and freckles) were still there. The fruit trees, which seemed like a great idea, dad, but in the end didn’t bear fruit and attracted swarms of bees, were flourishing. The people who lived there had a boy about my age and shot hoops with him in his driveway and educated him on the finer points of getting two chicks to kiss in the bushes.
My second decade began with the same innocence (if you can call achieving a triple-kiss by seven years old innocent) as my first, though picked up steam in the second half to where I was completely out of control. Drinking, drugs, throwing parties at my folks house when they were out of town with three hundred plus kids and six kegs and ten bottles of champagne for new years 1996. Seminal events that I can remember were hitting two home runs to beat Homer Township in the Palos Youth Baseball Invitational. Swimming at my grandfather’s pool. Getting my first pubic hair (I made a big deal out of this, for some reason, even though looking back I’m mortified with my need to show and tell). My first kiss, first girlfriend, and losing my virginity (when I was seventeen, on my parent’s bed–ew, gross, right, though, truth be told they never slept together there–in case anyone cares). I’d have to say most of my memories of these years revolved around baseball or partying with friends or girls. Those three things taken separately are fine, but put them together they tend to knock heads, and they did. When I should have been hititng off of my tee, I was chasing girls. When I should have been chasing girls, I was hitting off of my tee (no pun intended). Main regrets from this period in my life were that I didn’t try hard enough academically in high school, didn’t put forth the effort to get into a better college, and I chickened out many times with asking out, ummm, lets call her D-squared.
From 20 to thirty I continued the bad habits accrued during my teens. College was college, what can I say. I had a house 423 W. Vernon!!!) with three of my best friends from high school, hung out everyday with a couple of my other best friends from high school, and met two of my best friends in my life to this day. We did too many drugs, drank too much, but we all lived. And I learned the skill of entertaining people and turning a profit (something I didn’t learn after spending twenty grand on college marketing classes, from bored, bitter marketing teachers).
One choice I made that I’ll never regret is when I graduated from college (Illinois State!) and packed up my 1986 Chevy Monte Carlo and drove to Los Angeles. The time I spent in LA, with the people and the experiences and the work, was worth more than college. I grew more in that time that I ever did in high school or college. I learned more about myself and the world around me and interacted with such a plethora of people (gay, straight, white, black, dolphin) that I’ll never be the same. And I don’t regret moving home when my dad first got sick. And though I’ve been floundering a bit in the five years since I moved back to Chicago from LA, I don’t really regret 25-30 either. I’ve met some people that will be a part of my life until it’s done. I dated women that made a clear impression on my life, and though I know I wasn’t the best boyfriend (can I even use that term, ladies?); God, I was difficult, and closed-off, and moody, and selfish, and frustratingly fearful of commitment, and add your own adjective, ladies (for all you SS–single and sexy–women in the reading audience, notice how I said WAS), but I know you made an impression on me, some of you put imprints on my life, and there’s one or two who I know I’ll regret not strapping to the gurney of matrimony.
At 27, I decided law school was the answer and I moved to Arizona only to decide a year later that law school was the answer for mom and dad, and the only thing in the world that has a shot to make me happy is for me to be a professional writer. And a couple people, here in Arizona, I am forever in debt to for taking me out of line and giving me the encouragement and advice that I know someday will pay off.
Today, I’m 30 years old and almost nine hours. Looking back on the first three decades of my life, I see some great accomplishments and feel the pain of some powerful failures and mistakes and missed opportunities. But we can’t go back, can we? We don’t get do overs. All we can do is march forward. So onward and upward, I say. My life, so far, is what I made it and I wouldn’t change it because I feel the best decades of my life are in front of me, not in the rear-view. I feel like I’ve spent thirty years preparing for something and very soon it will crystalize into this coherent vision and all the struggling and battling and starts and restarts of my first three decades will suddenly make sense.
So, long answer (see above), short answer for how do I feel about turning thirty?
Reflective and hopeful.
Thanks for reading. Please comment, if you have the urge. No one will judge you. Well, maybe a little bit. 🙂
MJ
May 28, 2009
Categories: Uncategorized . Tags: 30, bacon, beer, college, comment, drugs, girls, hoops, hope, kiss, kissing, law school, marketing, read, thirty, virginity . Author: Michael Greenwald . Comments: 6 Comments
Michael Greenwald
SleepSunshine 
Turning, Turning 30
So, yesterday was my birthday (that’s right, folks, and anyone who didn’t wish me a Happy Birthday on Facebook or Myspace, you’ve been subsequently deleted!) and I turned thirty years old (nifty title, right). Many people asked me the obvious question of how it feels to turn thirty.
Well, here’s my answer.
My first decade, I barely remember (my mother has a minute-by-minute synopsis in case anyone is interested). We lived in a house in Oak Lawn, Illinois on like 92nd off of Cicero Ave. My memory of the house was that it was really big and green, though when I went back several years ago, it turned out to be average-sized and yellow and brown. The bushes where I kissed a girl the first time (Candace, who was a year older–always had a thing for older women) and saw two girls kiss for the first time (Candace and the girl across the street, whose name escapes me, but she had red hair and freckles) were still there. The fruit trees, which seemed like a great idea, dad, but in the end didn’t bear fruit and attracted swarms of bees, were flourishing. The people who lived there had a boy about my age and shot hoops with him in his driveway and educated him on the finer points of getting two chicks to kiss in the bushes.
My second decade began with the same innocence (if you can call achieving a triple-kiss by seven years old innocent) as my first, though picked up steam in the second half to where I was completely out of control. Drinking, drugs, throwing parties at my folks house when they were out of town with three hundred plus kids and six kegs and ten bottles of champagne for new years 1996. Seminal events that I can remember were hitting two home runs to beat Homer Township in the Palos Youth Baseball Invitational. Swimming at my grandfather’s pool. Getting my first pubic hair (I made a big deal out of this, for some reason, even though looking back I’m mortified with my need to show and tell). My first kiss, first girlfriend, and losing my virginity (when I was seventeen, on my parent’s bed–ew, gross, right, though, truth be told they never slept together there–in case anyone cares). I’d have to say most of my memories of these years revolved around baseball or partying with friends or girls. Those three things taken separately are fine, but put them together they tend to knock heads, and they did. When I should have been hititng off of my tee, I was chasing girls. When I should have been chasing girls, I was hitting off of my tee (no pun intended). Main regrets from this period in my life were that I didn’t try hard enough academically in high school, didn’t put forth the effort to get into a better college, and I chickened out many times with asking out, ummm, lets call her D-squared.
From 20 to thirty I continued the bad habits accrued during my teens. College was college, what can I say. I had a house 423 W. Vernon!!!) with three of my best friends from high school, hung out everyday with a couple of my other best friends from high school, and met two of my best friends in my life to this day. We did too many drugs, drank too much, but we all lived. And I learned the skill of entertaining people and turning a profit (something I didn’t learn after spending twenty grand on college marketing classes, from bored, bitter marketing teachers).
One choice I made that I’ll never regret is when I graduated from college (Illinois State!) and packed up my 1986 Chevy Monte Carlo and drove to Los Angeles. The time I spent in LA, with the people and the experiences and the work, was worth more than college. I grew more in that time that I ever did in high school or college. I learned more about myself and the world around me and interacted with such a plethora of people (gay, straight, white, black, dolphin) that I’ll never be the same. And I don’t regret moving home when my dad first got sick. And though I’ve been floundering a bit in the five years since I moved back to Chicago from LA, I don’t really regret 25-30 either. I’ve met some people that will be a part of my life until it’s done. I dated women that made a clear impression on my life, and though I know I wasn’t the best boyfriend (can I even use that term, ladies?); God, I was difficult, and closed-off, and moody, and selfish, and frustratingly fearful of commitment, and add your own adjective, ladies (for all you SS–single and sexy–women in the reading audience, notice how I said WAS), but I know you made an impression on me, some of you put imprints on my life, and there’s one or two who I know I’ll regret not strapping to the gurney of matrimony.
At 27, I decided law school was the answer and I moved to Arizona only to decide a year later that law school was the answer for mom and dad, and the only thing in the world that has a shot to make me happy is for me to be a professional writer. And a couple people, here in Arizona, I am forever in debt to for taking me out of line and giving me the encouragement and advice that I know someday will pay off.
Today, I’m 30 years old and almost nine hours. Looking back on the first three decades of my life, I see some great accomplishments and feel the pain of some powerful failures and mistakes and missed opportunities. But we can’t go back, can we? We don’t get do overs. All we can do is march forward. So onward and upward, I say. My life, so far, is what I made it and I wouldn’t change it because I feel the best decades of my life are in front of me, not in the rear-view. I feel like I’ve spent thirty years preparing for something and very soon it will crystalize into this coherent vision and all the struggling and battling and starts and restarts of my first three decades will suddenly make sense.
So, long answer (see above), short answer for how do I feel about turning thirty?
Reflective and hopeful.
Thanks for reading. Please comment, if you have the urge. No one will judge you. Well, maybe a little bit. 🙂
MJ
May 28, 2009
Categories: Uncategorized . Tags: 30, bacon, beer, college, comment, drugs, girls, hoops, hope, kiss, kissing, law school, marketing, read, thirty, virginity . Author: Michael Greenwald . Comments: 6 Comments