Yep , I can officially say I've just completed another lap around the sun. Sitting in pole position on the third planet from the left i have so far completed 32 laps of 149600000 km each an an average of 30km's per second. Eat my shorts Shumacher ! But enough with the phisics. As social etiquette demands, this (along with newyears-eve) is one of those moments where you evaluate your current situation and proclaim propostorous resolutions explaining what you plan to change in the coming years. Let us not linger by the sidelines and jump right in.
So , you're 32. All grown up and no place to go.
Well , a lot of men my age are married or even find themselves at the point where they are paying alimony to remind them that 'for good or for bad' can turn sour pretty soon. They might even have kids and the highpoint of their day is the footy on TV or a raunchy magazine left behind at the trainstation. Compared to a lot of guyz my age (and I look for reference at my classmates from gradeschool) look a hell of a lot older then me, not only am i blessed with the sprout of youth (read : i have a babyface) I don't FEEL 32 either. When I see the soccer moms and soccer-dads waddle by with their carriages my spine tingles and I gently chuckle that those are the things farthest from my mind. I have found the love of my life (we have been together for ten years now) and I have become a married man last summer. No kids (no thank you) for both of us. And quite frankly, with the mindset we both have, its not gonna happen soon. If there is one thing I have learned about going over 30, then it is that nothing is written in stone after the third decennium. (unless you want it to) I hate the words 'settled down' because they imply resistance to change. Change is inevitable and thus I find myself far from settled. I would like some peace and quiet on the real estate front (people constantly want to buy our house) but beside that , i am content with the way things are. Where men used to get a mid-life crisis when they where thirty (balancing out the checkbook where do i want to be / where am I) I found turning thirty being an exiting experience with a general feel of : its all just getting started.
Cakes and Candles.
Every year around this time it used to be time for the "Big Knighty's B-day party" where I would invite all my friends and family over. Allthough i have enjoyed such moments greatly , i have refrained from doing them after my 30'st birthday. Is it maturity that dicates me to become more discrete when my birthday comes up .. Or have I just moved into different circles ? I do not know. My roundtable of close friends has grown very intimate and even those close friends are people I don't see on a weekly bases. But the ties are there nonetheless. If i where to throw a birhtday party for the people I interact with everyday (online) the cost in ailinetickets would be astronomical. Certainly in the last two years, geographical boundries have meant little to me. Where my old schoolbuddies peer with neighbours at the local soccerclub, I have daily skypcalls with buddies in the US and Australia. When it comes to real life social interaction I might be becoming a hobo ! Luckily the calls on my cellphone from my sis-in-law and mum-in-law proved to be a joy and all the links i needed to the geographically closeby world.
Conclusion.
I hate conclusions. They are so darn final. So I'll evaluate how I feel today. I'm 32, am sitting behind a sober but nicely equipped desk in a nice house. On the couch the girl I married this year is blissfully sleeping and I know that whenever she is around me , i can make her happy. I love her very much and know that we have something extremely precious and special going on between the two of us. In my ears music is playing from a server, over a network that I have setup by mysellf with skills i've learned from scratch over the past ten years. I could go on but it is suffice to say I am a happy 32 year old guy 🙂