Update On Thirty

Longtime readers of this blog, if any exist, will remember that I had a hard time turning thirty last summer. It wasn't that I thought it would be the end of my youth, or the beginning of old age, just that I thought that thirty would mean putting aside that search for identity I had been on for twenty-nine years and I wasn't sure what to replace it with. I have never really known who I was, or what, or where I fit in.

See, from sexuality (lesbian, hetero, bi, pan) to religion (Buddhist, Wiccan, Pantheist) I have never really worn labels well. I have rejected labels, denounced labels, and loudly protested people's need for labels, but I have never had one that really stuck. I am human, female, and Caucasian, and that's as far as my concrete knowledge goes. I don't cling to any of those with any sense of pride, and I don't consider any to be a source of personal identity per se, but I acknowledge that they're accurate when asked. (Why is it that spell-check capitalizes Caucasian? Is it really important enough to denounce lower-case?)

I have hung out with ( and keep in mind that these titles were all embraced by the individuals they were describing at the time) stoners, art-fags, white trash, jocks, gear-heads, garage bands, bar bands, D.J.s, metal heads, rednecks, and many more I can't compartmentalize right off the top of my head, and I somehow managed to fit in, for a time, with all of them. I learned quickly, for instance, that all it took to fit in with the art-fags, was a great disdain for anything industrial, the ability to quote (and spell) Nietzsche, and a heavy dose of Kerouac worship. The white trash taught me the importance of driving an American vehicle (even if it is twelve years older than you are and covered in rust) and that the greatest social skill a woman can ever acquire is the ability to sing, from memory, anything Sandy sang in Grease.

Each group had it's own vital knowledge, which any group member was expected to know, and which I was always able to easily figure out. I was somehow able to be "one of the guys" to just about any group of guys. For the gear-heads it was the difference between pearl and metal-flake; for the garage band guys it was how to tighten a snare and never to laugh at the term "plastic wood block". However, for the bar band guys, it was more important to be able to accurately critique the lights and to be able to decipher the screamed lyrics of any popular song.

These were talents I cultivated, bits of knowledge I amassed to be appreciated. I can tell you what churban means and also explain why that DJ at the oldies station got fired (yes, "He sounded too AC" is a valid reason). I can recite amazingly anti-establishment poetry, insincerely, off the top of my head, and tell you how Kerouac met Burroughs (after college, but at the dorm). I have lived for months on just beer and pizza, or cheese and wine and apples, or microwave macaroni and cheese (Michelina's is the best). But I have never been without some outside influence telling me who to be. It's not that I have chosen to spend time with people who demand I be like them. Quite the contrary, I have always been myself with them all. I simply have over-played certain aspects of my psyche to reflect their interests. I suppose that's why I find my marriage so intriguing; I don't have to repress any interests or personality quirks around Tom. I have the opportunity, now, to discover myself, to find out in what ratios these aspects of myself exist. Thirty was a milestone that scared me because I thought it meant the end of that time of self-discovery.

But it doesn't. Tom may be a blue-collar Republican jock farm-boy but I don't have to be, and he will still buy me copies of Dorian Gray and biographies of the beat poets. And I'm free to express an interest in history, or politics, or anything else I enjoy, without fear of judgment. I now see that thirty means not caring if I fit in, not worrying about what others expect from me. I have the next fifty years to find out who I am, and if I'm lucky my tombstone will read, "She finally knew herself." Thirty is good. Thirty is comfortable. Thirty is not to be feared anymore.

Wrinkles, on the other hand, are to be feared and respected in the same way one both fears and respects nuclear weapons. They possess the ability to destroy life as I know it and therefor must be eradicated from the planet, or at least from my face.