This is a thread for ILXors in their 30's!!! yo yo yo breakdancing etc...

I am in my 30s. I like it okay. It seems like a good period of life. There's some of the energy and health of youth, but you also know a bit more about what you're doing, have the experience to do it confidently and effectively, and no longer have to feel fraudulent about presenting yourself as an adult person. This all seems okay by me. I buy Oxford shirts instead of hoodies, and pants with creases that require ironing. (Thus far the clothes are the best part of being in the 30s, really.) I haven't bought a cup of coffee with dimes in quite a while. I don't feel the least bit unreasonable over calling the crappy new bar at the end of the block and telling them their PA system is too loud, and why do they have a PA system anyway -- because I'm older and no longer assume that I'm the odd one out for objecting to something. I have a story or comment about most topics people might mention, but I'm not so old that my story is dated and boring and has to include parenthetical comments about what technology we did or did not have back when the story was taking place. I know most of the problems that will present themselves to me, day to day, and I know the best way to solve them. I feel less risk, like if I've managed to be myself this long then it's unlikely that I will be ruined and changed into someone else. It no longer feels bothersome or burdensome or hard to remember to take care of myself; I can do things like exercise every day, not because I'm subjecting myself to it to accomplish something, but because it actually feels satisfying and worthwhile to have the habit. I no longer have to think of anyone as being of a wildly separate age group from me; even with very old men, well, they are just standing over at the other end of the process of becoming an old man I'm undertaking, but there's no big set mountain of change between us. It's only been a year, really, but I don't mind the thirties yet; they seem pretty okay.

l;r

My version of that game is that we're now just as far from 1988 as we were from 1968 in 1988. That just doesn't seem right. '68 and that whole era was already mythologized and its heroes were dead and the footage of it was all grainy and saturated and it was ANCIENT HISTORY. Hell, the late 70s seemed like ancient history. People wore funny clothes and had funny hairstyles. I can't imagine a 10 year old in 2008 looking back at '88 or '98 and having a similar feeling about as 10 yr old me did about '68 or '78.

L is 10 in a couple of months. we were watching footage of the '88 Olympics together and I can easily imagine that would have looked to him like Mexico '68 looks to me.

All my kids are aghast that there was a world before Wikipedia.

that whole era was already mythologized

http://365bestdays.files.wordpress.com/2007/05/wedding-singer.gif

and its heroes were dead

http://images.usatoday.com/weather/_photos/2006/05/17/inside2-appeoplepilatus.jpg

and the footage of it was all grainy and saturated

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZEGHnAxEpo

and it was ANCIENT HISTORY

http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m76/DrewziG71/eighties.jpg

hahaha Ned. yeah it's easier to compare 88 to 68 than 98 to 78 w/r/t this game.

I mainly just struggled to get my head around the fact that "the sixties" were pretty recent history when I was a kid.

Now that I'm 37 it's odd to see what I already have in common with people in their 40s, and also disorienting to have conversations about music or art or politics with lots of people in their 20s. Not a huge gap, but not nothing either. Often we reach the same conclusions but from opposite ends, and the points of reference keep getting cumulatively richer for me but it's a conversational obstacle if you bring too many references up with much younger people. I guess the best thing about talking to people far older and far younger than you is that your own presumptions get tested quickly and frequently (if you let it sink in- won't happen if you're just ranting and spouting, which, of course, goes for them too).

nabisco thinks about his thirties like he's already fifty

I'm excited about the end of this decade. XXX9 years are always some sort of weird mix of the two decades they fall between.

Sunny had the old school rap channel on our cable the other day, where they play music on top of still photographs of the artist with dumb trivia underneath it ("LL Cool J stood for 'Ladies Love Cool James'.")

Kool Moe Dee was on there with his leather cap and oversized shades, and it was so not-80's, but not-90's either.

Also see episodes of "WKRP in Cincinnati", Led Zeppelin II, and Harry S. Truman's second term.

And yeah, I remember what a big deal it was for Sgt. Pepper being released for the first time on CD in 1987 ("It was twenty years ago today...")

And last summer, it was twenty years ago that it was twenty years ago.

I expect a lot more than that from my 50s, Tombot! If it took me to my 50s to learn how to exercise and iron my pants and make good small talk, I'd feel like something had gone slightly wrong with my life.

(xxpost) not 80's, not quite 90's either...
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/a/a1/Nirvana-Bleach.jpg/200px-Nirvana-Bleach.jpg
Not so much the album, more their look at the time. I can't find that group picture where Kurt has really long hair, but you know what I mean?

xp haha nabisco makes everybody feel like something has gone slightly wrong with their lives.

cheers.

no no nabisco I meant that your ruminations on your thirties struck me as if you'd already lived through them

Not this picture either, but this is pretty much what I mean...
http://www.solarnavigator.net/music/music_images/Nirvana_band_members.jpg

btw if you have to iron your pants you're either buying the wrong kind or storing them incorrectly

Oh, gotcha. The topic seems to call for some kind of thoughtful response. I only just turned 31, though, so I wouldn't exactly trust me on the topic of what one's 30s are like.

PP otm re:XXX9. see also: kid rock's breakout and de la soul: 3 ft. high & rising

i can't believe nabisco is younger than i am! only by a year, but still...

I am also surprised by this.

Well into my 30s I still rarely iron clothes. Time on this planet is growing short for me and I like to make better use of my time.

THANKS GUYS, GREAT THREAD TO TELL ME I SEEM OLD ON

I still buy hoodies and don't iron a goddamn thing. Maybe once I hit the big 3-1?

nab, i think i first met you in my mid-20s and you seemed about 5 years older than me then, so i'm basing my assumptions on a younger version of you -- does that make sense?

I'm taking a freshman 101 class right now and sat with a bunch of kids who are at least 15 years younger than me this morning. It was hilarious for them, like their first encounter with someone who isn't a teacher or older relative but isn't one of them.

"So do you all live in the dorms?"
"No, actually my wife and I own a house."
"Uh.....what year are you?"

That's kind of worse! But it reminds me of something I was just noticing the other day, about aging: more and more I find myself doing that thing where you shrug and say something like "oh, I dunno, I'm just a guy who is X" -- this sort of comfort that develops where you say yeah, this is who I am, this is what I do, this is what I hope to accomplish, and that's that.

As I was approaching 30 I probably experienced a lot more stress about what I was doing and what kind of successes I could get to, and I was a little afraid the 30s would be some big crushing slog to make that happen. Maybe it's just that as a result of that stress I started getting my goals in better order, but over the past year or so I've felt significantly less stressed about those things: I know what I'm working on, and really don't care much lately about meeting any standards or timelines apart from the ones I'm setting for myself.

I just turned 30 and between this thread and a couple of other recent thingies I'm pretty convinced our generation - the folks who are all 24-42 or so, at the moment - is about to be fucking crucial. for me being thirty is about realizing, for really dough, that I'm not going to be this that or the other thing, but that I CAN be this that and the other thing I wasn't necessarily considering before. I'm trying to be a civil servant, a bureaucrat, practically, because that's where I think I have a shot at shepherding things in a better direction. I'm considering the possibility of finally owning property. I'm going to settle in my town and do a job the best I can - these are things that hardly occured to me in my twenties, if at all. It was always "oh san francisco's awesome" or "how much of a pay cut could I tolerate to live in NYC" etc now I'm like I've seen a bit of the world and frankly I don't mind so much where I'm at, astronaut or bomb squad was out of the question from the get-go, let's do what we can. I hope I can spend part of this decade doing a little more than self-preservation in between misdirected hijinx, which is the story of the last decade - yes, military enlistment and failed marriage included - I'm even talking with the lady about going on one of those weeklong Habitat camps where you sleep on cots and build houses. I think I'm going to dig it, I think I'm finally coming out of this bizarre 29-30 transitionary period.

It all boils down to reading Vonnegut and having a completely different understanding than you had before, kinda.

btw starting with "it all boils down to" and ending with "kinda" is not a sentence construction I recommend to anyone, ever.

Surely I am not the only one for whom the passage of time seemed far different for my 20s than it is for my 30s. I swear that the time between age 22 and 29 was actually like 12 years.

Put another way, it seemed like I was in my 20s forever, while the 30s are clicking by really quickly.

Granny Dainger raises a fascinating point. Everything shot in the '70s and '80s is grainy and/or blurry. Most stuff that's shot now is in HD and won't deteriorate. If nothing swanky like 3D comes along in the next 20 years, footage won't age (apart from the fashions therein obv).

Recently I saw some Young Ones footage and it looked AWFUL. At the time, it was clear and crisp and tantalisingly lovely. I am 34.

"by the way I'm in my 30s"

I think the only thing I'm not enjoying about particularly my late 30s, is declining health, and a far reduced ability to cope with hammering the naughty substances. I'm at that tipping point where I either back off and start looking after myself diligently, or I go 'eh whatever' and risk ending up ill.

Its hard! I'm enjoying myself :(

in many ways i'm probably healthier now than i've been since my early 20s. i don't mind being over 30, i freaked out a bit at 31 but i'm pretty calm about it now, i cope with being the old guy by not trying even vaguely to be relevant

I hate the beer gut I've gotten but then I look at my bf who is only 24 and already has a beer gut outdoing mine and I dont worry so much haha.

I'm certainly fitter than I've ever been.

It's suddenly driving home the point of how much younger than me most of the sort of "traditional guard" of ILX is. That the 30s are still a recent experience for you, while I'm about to kiss them goodbye.

I know that sentance is really garbled, but I haven't had my coffee yet. That's one thing that REALLY decreases with age. The ability to function without sleep.

I always think that I'm spending more and more time these days feeling tired and lazy, but if i think about it a bit more I remember that this is also what i did during my 20's

The ability to function without sleep? I'm not sure it actually decreases that much, you just don't remember being that tired in retrospect.

No, no, I mean ability to *function*. I used to be able to be tired, but still put in a day's work or whatever. Now, if I don't sleep properly, I simply don't function. Can't concentrate, can't focus, can't have a cup of coffee and snap to it.

I think I function slightly better without sleep than I did in my twenties, but maybe that's just because I don't drink as much!

I had a similar blip in my mid-30s when I first stopped drinking so much, but that has now passed and the decline is back on. By the time I am 50, I will be sleeping 10 hours a day. (If the world is not consumed by Hadron supercollider or Mayan prophecies of ruin, and I'm not hit by a bus, etc.)

I thought as you get older you don't need as much sleep anyway. My grandma is up at 5am and goes to bed at midnight. Does that only kick in when you get to your 60s or something?

I think it varies according to metabolism. People in my family tend to need more sleep as they get older. If they don't get it at night, they'll nap during the day. (God I miss naps from being unemployed.)

Things that freak me out. I have tennis lesson from a guy who's 28. I'm pretty sure he's the little brat I would play against when I was 15 years old (and he about 7-ish). I now realize if I had continued I woul... Ah I gotta stop thinking this way. hah.

Penpals! Had tons of'em. My "best/longest" one wanted to meet up after about 7 years of writing. I knew that when we would meet up, it would be the end of it as the "magic" would be broken. We did meet up. We continued to write but after a year or so it just kinda watered down and that was that. Kinda sad but then we were already in our late teens and you sort of move on/grow up.

Less sleep? Bollox. I need my sleep but then my youngest has decided otherwise. LE SIGH. My gran - who might have Alzheimer - sleeps about 16 hours per day if I am guessing right.

Sometimes the magic was broken by meeting penpals. But in my experience, they translated into IRL friends. I ended up being roommates for several years with someone I met through the penpal circuit!

THANKS GUYS, GREAT THREAD TO TELL ME I SEEM OLD ON

Not old, wise. Take it as a compliment.

I'm totally where Tom is now. My days of city-hopping, failed marriages (well just the one), and career-switching are done and I'm content to just live and build the life I have. Although it has taken me to 35 to reach this point.

Also, talking about being around younger people, my new job is playing with my head as I'm now supervising 19 and 20 year olds. I realize I am the old person which is bizarre. It doesn't make me feel bad but just strange seeing myself through other people's eyes.

Perhaps they'll keep me young trying to keep up with their mad web skillz and crazy music.

Surely I am not the only one for whom the passage of time seemed far different for my 20s than it is for my 30s. I swear that the time between age 22 and 29 was actually like 12 years.

Put another way, it seemed like I was in my 20s forever, while the 30s are clicking by really quickly.

-- quincie, Wednesday, August 27, 2008 7:43 PM (Wednesday, August 27, 2008 7:43 PM) Bookmark Link

this is frighteningly OTM.

We're all forgetting the best part of being in your mid-30s:

No longer being in the key 18-34 Marketing demographic target.

No, that's the worst part. No one cares about your tastes anymore. It's much harder to find clothes that fit or movies you care about seeing in the slightest or culture that tweaks your interests. ;_;