perfect timing....

what poetic timing ...i opened relevant magazine on my birthday and this was the article i found....



We were gathered to celebrate one of our friends crossing into his 30s, the first from the group besides 50-somethil'lg Kris.

"What did you just say?" I grimaced at her. "You're all going to love being 30. The whole decade of your 30s is fabulous!" Despite being well shy of the normal age for dementia, I thought Kris must be losing it.

The food arrived and the little ones grew quiet while they smeared pizza in every direction, sometimes even mouths. I listened carefully while Kris explained her outlandish statement. ·Later, I mulled over this strange teaching from my wise elder. My brow remained furrowed, but I vowed to investigate once I turned 30 in two years' time.

I'm now approaching 32. I love my 30s, and you can, too. Here's why.

Thirty-two is two times 16, which is when

I thought I became an adult. I considered

my adulthood as starting at that tender

age because I could then hurtle along at owtrageous speeds in a metal box with rubber wheels, potentially able to kill any number of people in my path. That, if nothing else, is not a responsibility to entrust to a child.

At 18, I received legal permission to die defending my country (though I didn't). And

I moved out of my folks' home permanently just before I turned 19. There was a beer

on my 21st, and marriage a few months

later. Surely these marked the passage into adulthood. Then a little creature named Phoebe entered the world v.tlen r \'las 25, and I became "Daddy." Wrth a bit oi help from my

wife, I could actually make people.

But an uneasiness accompanied all of

these stages. I didn't quite feel like an adult, and other adults didn't seem to regard

me as one. From my peers to my parents' generation, no one regarded me as a grownup. Not much was expected from me in any sphere. I still hovered awkwardly in family gatherings, sat lowest in the pecking order at work, and in church I wasn't really allowed to lead anything except young adult ministries.

Upon entering my 30s, though, something shifted in how people saw me. Probably I

was standing taller-my shoulders finally broadened from my scrawny wedding picture. But I also had more than just a couple months or a year of experience

in a few things. People consulted me on important questions. I started to feel not just grown-up but downright presidential!

From puberty, most people enter a decadelong search for who they are, why they're here and where they're going. Our heads spin: the world is your oyster, the sky's the limit, see it and be it, dream big, shoot for the moon.

This smorgasbord of opportunities and the ability to visualize doing anything, plus the pressure of finding a mate and a source of income, leads us to a state of mental anguish. What if we fail? What if we change our minds? We carry the angst of having to move quickly and enjoy everything, or else the train of happy living might pass us by.

To some extent, the questions and concerns are valid. The choices and advances we make in our 20s can take us in radically different directions for the rest of our lives. But we let the pressure crush us, leading to stress or paralysis. For me, this angst led me to move 35 times while in my 20s, with 12 different jobs, including part-time gigs. I can partly attribute these moves to a desire to do whatever work God had for me anywhere in the world. But I also know now that a share of my choices followed my own psychological need to find the "best," the "right."

Entering my 30s, this pressure is off. Yes, I'm still pushing in new directions, trying to achieve more, considering new work and places. There's not the same force behind it, though. I'm comfortable knowing I will get where I'm going eventually.

In my 20s, I tried to show that I was grown up. I wanted to do what was necessary to get "promoted" from the kids' table.

During my 20s, I met weekly with a group of Christians ranging in age from 21 to 72. I remember thinking the group must be grateful to have a few of us young ones adding pep to the geriatrics. Looking back now, I see that we gained as much, if not more, from them. They also had to forgive plenty of our twentysomething quirks. We thought we knew more than we actually did. We'd contribute the latest thing we'd learned, as if no one had ever learned that lesson. We brought seemingly urgent prayers for the next major life decision. We attempted to reduce our angst by showing we could shoot for the moon, all the while fearing we might blow it to smithereens.

Now, I'm 32 and things have changed. I've made my share of mistakes, but life goes on. I don't need to prove to anyone else that I'm an adult because I feel like I actually am one.

We tend to think of aging as a downward spiral. From 25 years onward, aging equals deterioration. We expect to say goodbye to laughing regularly, dating without the everlooming word "marriage," and playing pick-up basketball without inflicting damage to joints and ligaments. Meanwhile we say hello to forgetfulness, high insurance premiums, and a peer group that goes to bed at 9 p.m. and barely keeps up with the fashions of the '90s.

In my conversation with Kris, she had something positive to say about every decade-exploring your identity in your 20s, finding footholds in your 30s, and she said that our 40s and 50s will be alright, too. I see her and other friends her age gracefully tackling life changes, like becoming a regional director of an organization or helping their children select a college, and I suspect she's right. I even know some 70-year-olds who make me look forward to that decade-I can't wait to sit in my armchair, occasionally looking out at my bird feeder and telling my 25-yearold friends to stop stressing about everything.

But for now, Kris was right-I love my 30s. ~