how did you deal with turning 30?- Page 2

[harris007]

Posted: 7/2/06 at 10:15pm

i feel better now thanks mom

[DBillyP]

Posted: 7/2/06 at 10:17pm

With a huge party and a canoe trip ... the canoe trip had beer and special cigarettes ...

[harris007]

Posted: 7/2/06 at 10:21pm

lol there wont be any of that next week

[singingwendy]

Posted: 7/2/06 at 11:05pm

Had no issue with 30, however, for some odd reason, the idea of turning 35 in December has me feeling really old!

(OK....quiet down those of you over 35...I'm entitled to my opinion! )

[harris007]

Posted: 7/2/06 at 11:08pm

still


and it sucks being single now too grrrr

[singingwendy]

Posted: 7/2/06 at 11:12pm

Harris...I think that's part of it too....not being what and where I had pictured myself by this age....and yet, I have to admit I'm not miserable, it's just not what I had planned in my perfect vision in my head......

[chealion313]

Posted: 7/2/06 at 11:12pm

I barely even noticed when I turned 30...it wasn't bad at all. Now, turning 35 and still being single, that was scary. Fortunately, most people don't believe me when I tell them I'm 36--plus I still get carded for cigarettes and sometimes alcohol.

You're only as old as you feel--it's just a number!!

[harris007]

Posted: 7/2/06 at 11:15pm

sing w

yeah thats part of it too,

[Dollypop]

Posted: 7/2/06 at 11:15pm

How did I deal with turning 30?

I locked myself in the house, took the phone of the hook, binged out on Spumoni ice cream and listened to the obc of HELLO, DOLLY! about 50 times.

I felt much better the next day.

[harris007]

Posted: 7/2/06 at 11:20pm

lol i saw you posted dolly, and i had a feeling thats what it would be =)



by the way have you seen dolly at papermill yet?

[singingwendy]

Posted: 7/2/06 at 11:24pm

I saw it on Wednesday! Some parts were great...others, not so great, or just plain strange......but overall not a bad performance.

[touchmeinthemorning]

Posted: 7/2/06 at 11:25pm

When all my friends have turned 30, they watched themselves in the mirror on the midnight of their birthday. It helps -- make sure nothing changes as the clock moving turns you 30.

That;s what I'll be doing in a couple of years.

[JohnBoy2]

Posted: 7/2/06 at 11:27pm

I don't understand the question. Deal with what, not dying before I reached 30?

[C is for Company]

Posted: 7/3/06 at 12:12am

I'm never going to be 30 I'm going to stay 18 forever!

[Yawper]

Posted: 7/3/06 at 12:30am

much better than with turning 40

[StageManager2]

Posted: 7/3/06 at 5:26am

"Listen to your superego, not your id
Age is just another damn neurosis"

But, seriously. I'm dreading turning 30 even though I'm only 26. A lot of it has to do with what singingwendy said about not feeling accomplished. I'm single and I still haven't found a career. It also doesn't help that my siblings (older and younger) have already been there, done that. One thing I don't look forward to is aging. So far, I don't have any wrinkles and I still have all of my hair. *knocks on imitation-wooden desk* Wouldn't it be ironic if my thirties turn out to be the best years of my life?

[otis33]

Posted: 7/3/06 at 6:27am

My 30th birthday was pretty incredible. My dog needed a hip surgery which was going to cost around $5,000. I was performing in a production of "Pageant," and the performance the night of my birthday became a benefit performance for my dog. The show sold out, and I turned 30 in front of strangers, family and friends (some I hadn't seen in years) playing Ms. West Coast wearing a blond wig, high heels and false eyelashes. Not only were people very generous, but you can't help but realize that you can't take life too seriously.

30 was a fun year. Welcome it!

[JohnPopa]

Posted: 7/3/06 at 10:01am

I got really drunk.

[best12bars]

Posted: 7/3/06 at 10:22am

30 hit me really hard. But I had several things happen to me during 29 that led up to it. Two of my friends passed away suddenly, within 6 months of each other. One was hit by a car, and one dropped dead (way too young) from a heart attack, while he was working as a regular on a sitcom. It was devastating to me, and it was the first time in my life that I recalled feeling MORTAL. When you finally first come to grips with your own mortality, it's a sobering moment. Most "young folks" just don't get that they're not going to be around forever, and that they are the living summation of everything they have done to themselves prior, good or bad. What I mean by that is the food you eat, the substances you abuse, the places you've been, the friends you make, the breaks you've had, the bridges you burned, etc., all add up to who you are at that given moment in time.

I realized there was little I could do to change the past, and nothing I could do to control other people's decisions, but I could make certain choices in my own life that would make me a better and happier person.

Within 6 months after this catharsis, I lost 60 pounds, started working out five days a week, quit smoking "cold turkey" (it's been 13 years now without a cigarette)... and came out of the closet (to MYSELF as well as the rest of the world). I had been living in a very "non-sexual" way for a decade up until then. No seedy torrid trysts, or dirty little secrets. I just knew that I needed to live my life on my own terms, and not anyone else's. That was the best decision I ever made, and the best birthday present I ever gave myself. To make my own happiness instead of trying to achieve what other people wanted or dreamed FOR me. And "coming out" was the biggest NON-event in my life. My family and my close friends had such a bland reaction to it, amounting to not much more than, "That's fine dear, how's the weather out there?" I was the one with the hangups and issues. As soon as I was able to let go of the classic American Dream (wife, kids, house, car) as something I was SUPPOSED to want and achieve, and live MY OWN version of the American Dream, I was just fine.

I'm not suggesting you "come out," drop 60 lbs., or even start working out... but at some point, making the decision to find your own happiness and to live life on your own terms (instead of through the eyes of others)... I DO wish you find that at some point. Whether it's at your 30-year mark or not.

After that, I can tell you that my 30s were terrific. SO MUCH easier than my 20s. I think people are struggling to find out who they are, and how they will fit into the world in their 20s. It's their first dose of living "real life" outside of an academic environment (socially, professionally, intellectually, romantically, etc). And it takes the better part of that decade to work through all of that. By the time you hit your 30s, it's not necessarily that you KNOW more, but life's joys and struggles seem to roll off of you more easily. You can deal with it all a lot better. That's something you can look forward to.

And there's the old saying that if turning 30 is easy for you, 40 will hit you like a ton of bricks... and vice-versa. It was true for me. Thirty was monumental... so 40 was a breeze by comparison.

I only wore a black veil and lit candles around the house for one week then!

Updated On: 7/3/06 at 10:22 AM

[The Grovers Corners Yenta]

Posted: 7/3/06 at 3:29pm

When I turned 30, I really didn't care because I was getting married two months later and I knew I wouldn't be a spinster. Of course I am divorced right now.

[Mother's Younger Brother]

Posted: 7/3/06 at 3:35pm

Honestly, I thought turning 25 was more traumatic, than turning 30! But, any anxiety I had about turing 30 the second it happened. The next day, I was literally thinking, "Ok, what's the big deal." Most people say their 30's were their favorite time of life. And so far, I can't complain either!

[wexy]

Posted: 7/3/06 at 4:05pm

Two of my gay friends, Bob and Arthur took out to this restaurant "Pinky's" on Fulton St. Downtown Manhattan. I thought that here I am 30. straight and no girlfriend (I should've asked one of the waitresses that liked me ther out) and the friends that care about me were my gay friends.
So there was no big deal, 40,I don't remember and this year hit the big 5-0 in the hospital with that stupid G.I. virus.
Here I am at 50 and people think I look 35 and I feel 25.

The one piece I have is take care of you mind and body. Always try new things.

[JohnBoy2]

Posted: 7/3/06 at 4:05pm

Wow, there are a lot of people with age issues here.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 7/3/06 at 4:41pm

When I turned 30, I gave up my dream of being a theater director and found a second career, in which, by the time I turned 40, I found the success that eluded me in the theater.

Twenty-nine was the rough year for me--the nadir of my life--it was about confronting disappointment without being able to run from it. Thirty, in contrast, was about the excitement of new beginnings. And 39-40 were probably the most positively charged years of my life.

I turned 50 this year, and I wouldn't change a single moment, except maybe to have been kinder to some people, including myself.

[NYadgal]

Posted: 7/3/06 at 4:49pm

I embraced it.

Because I didn't think I'd reach it. I'd been told I wouldn't...

Some of the lessons of my life have been hard to learn, but I've embraced each and every one.

Every birthday is precious to me.

Oh, and for 30, I went to Italy. Turning 30 in Italy is a good thing.