When I saw my parents in Vegas a few weeks ago, my mom gave me a wonderful present: silver engraved diaper pins, mine, which were actually used to secure my cloth diapers when I was a baby. By the date on one you can see that 30 years ago today I was born. 30 years seems like a long time, much longer than I feel I've been alive. But then when I think about it I seem to have so many years of memories, like how I remember seeing Grease and Star Wars in the theatres, and how I loved those days during the Blizzard of '77 when I had nothing to do but play in the snowdrifts in front of the house. And I can think back to the 80's, to Billy Joel's Glass Houses and Madonna's Borderline, to dissecting frogs in science class and horrible memories of seventh grade boys, to high school and a Spanish class trip to Mexico and the bus rides after soccer games singing Doug E. Fresh's La Di Da Di on the way home. Somehow so many of those memories seem fresher than the 90's, which lack distinction and blur into a haze of rowing and reading in college, then working and working and working.
What freaks me out the most is how clearly I remember nearly all this stuff. Five years ago? Seems as clear to me as last week. Heck, I remember what I did on certain weekends in 10th grade. That was 1986! And all the sudden, I'm 30. People keep telling me it's great, that it's better than one's 20's and all that. But I'm not feeling quite up to 30 yet, mostly because it seems so old and I feel so young.
Aren't people supposed to be married when they're 30? Aren't they supposed to have kids? Or a job? Or own a house? Aren't they supposed to be grown up? I don't feel grown up. I don't know, I think there's been a mistake somewhere along the way, an accounting error of sorts. I can't possibly be 30. There must be a typo on my diaper pins, surely I'm not a day over 25.