Tomorrow I will be 30 (thirty), three zero. I am no longer going to be in my mid to late twenties. I am not a member of the 20's crowd. I will officially be (in the parlance of those who are in their teens and twenties) old.
What do I have to show for my life at 30?
I am a normal man of middle class status working day to day to make a happy home for me and my family. I have two wonderful children and a beautiful wife. I have two loving (although testing at times) dogs who are great with both of my kids. I have a house that we have made into a home and although it is messy at times and a little smaller than we would like, it is home and it is where I want to be. I couldn't be more impressed with my life at this moment.
Rewind.
When I was twenty, all I wanted to be was 21. All I wanted to was to do things to make me happy in that moment. I had dreams of being a millionaire someday and jumping from place to place with my friends and girls and being a superstar. It was all just fantasy to pass the time.
They say your twenties are your selfish years and whoever "they" are couldn't have been more right (although they could have been more specific and said 20-25 are your selfish years. I look back and think "holy shit what was I thinking?" and I just shake my head. You can't change your past, all you can do is embrace it and make adjustments moving forward.
I look back and think that I missed some opportunities here and there, and then I think about where I am now and I realize that I am glad I missed them.
If I hadn't of missed them I wouldn't be here; where I belong.
Fast Forward.
The moment my wife (then girlfriend, I know I know heathens right) and I realized she was pregnant was the single most terrifyingly satisfying day in my life. I knew right then and there that not only was I, from that day forward, responsible for another human life but also that my life goals just became simpler and more focused than they had ever been. It was time that I finally had something worth focusing my energy on; a family. I was 26.
Some people would run and hide and I don't know if I am wired differently or if it was just what I wanted, but I embraced it. It made everything so much clearer for me. No matter what I did with my life from that point on nothing else was going to matter to me more than my family that started with the moment that stick with the two little pink lines said "hey, you're having a baby".
Back to the present.
I sometimes sit here and I complain about not making enough money or not being able to go on lavish vacations. I have become entrenched in my routine that I must always keep in the front of my mind how blessed I really am. I have a wife who loves me (who I love to the depths of my soul), two kids that are happy and healthy who I couldn't live without. I have a nice house in a good, safe neighborhood in a great city. My salary may not be the greatest, or even the most I have ever earned in my life but it has enabled us to buy a home and allow my wife to stay at home with our kids for a few years now, and for that I am grateful.
I really have nothing that I can legitimately complain about in my life. I am thirty.
There is something profound in those two sentences that I never realized when I was 21. Being a bartender through college, the only 30 year old people that I knew were miserable drunks who were always fighting with or cheating on their spouses. Maybe that is why I had such a terrible outlook on 30.
What the heck does this have to do with parenting?
Well, you might think it has nothing to do with being a good parent but I disagree. While lamenting that I am getting older and hitting the big three-o I have realized a lot. I have realized that being older and realizing that time is valuable and scarce I have become a better parent. If I were to have become a parent in my early twenties I would probably be one of those miserable drunk 30 year old guys fighting with my wife (most likely ex) about my lack of parenting.
I guess what I am getting at is, instead of lamenting that I am getting older I now realize that I am enjoying getting older and I am enjoying the things that come with age, so enjoy your time and enjoy what you have. It wasn't too long ago that I had none of this and boy was I lost.
Here is to the next decade; and more.
