Lavos’ Second Form

Around a quarter of an hour ago, I turned 30.

I turned 30 while I was driving home in a car by myself down a highway that was largely empty.  I felt fine.

I’m not quite sure how I was intended to feel, really.  My friends (who all turned 30 earlier this year) all seemed to think it was fun to joke–in a not really joking way–about how they feel so old, their wild ways are over, the best years of their life are behind them.

And so on.

And I still feel fine.

Come to think of it, most of the milestones of my life have passed by me without me really acknowledging them in the way that I should.

When I turned 25 and could legally rent a car, I was sitting in a dark room feeling very upset.

When I turned 21 and could legally drink, I was studying for finals for a subject I hated full of people I didn’t like.

When I turned 18 and could legally drive, I was crying near nightly over a world that I didn’t want to be a part of that I felt was passing me by.

When I turned 16 and could be considered more of a man than a boy, I was just starting to realize how unhappy I was with myself.

When I turned 10, I got out of bed and ran outside into a living room full of presents as my dad congratulated me to making it to double digits.

Honestly, I feel closer to 10 than anything else right now, considering what I’ve done with my 30 years so far.  And these last few ones, especially.

But what have I done?  I sold a new trilogy to a bigger publisher whom I’ve become immensely fond of even in my one year of knowing them.  I’m continuing to do what I love for a living and I’ve proven to myself that my success wasn’t a fluke and I’m actually good at what I do.  I’m alive and healthy enough to enjoy it all.  But these almost seem like a cop-out, things anyone could be happy for.

So what have I really done?

I kissed more people than I thought I would.  I got into a fistfight with my best friend and we are still best friends.  I drank a lot, threw up some, said a lot of things I didn’t mean to people who were smiling and I was glad to see smile.  I cleaned up some dog poop, not as much dog vomit.  I learned how to drive a powerboat and I figured out that it was okay to like Drizzt Do’Urden.

But even that seems totally shallow compared to what I really did.

I learned to love myself.

For a dark period that feels like it stretches a very long time in my life, I was desperately unhappy.  I didn’t like the way I looked.  I didn’t like the way I felt.  I didn’t like the people around me.  I didn’t like what I was doing.  I didn’t like anything, really.

I can’t really say what changed.  I started working out, of course, and that helped a lot.  I learned that there qualities in people around me that I enjoyed and I learned to not be afraid to cut people out of my life who were adding nothing.  I learned to not only love what I was doing, but love that I was doing it.  I learned that I think a lot of people are just plain awesome.

Maybe all the darkness that came before was necessary to figuring out how to be able to put it aside.  Maybe it trained me to deal with it or maybe I just got tired of having it around.  I don’t know.  But I moved past it.

Which is why I hate that a lot of people around me are still in it.  If I can say there were unhappy moments in this year, I’d say that they were the moments I saw people I trusted and admired turn to bitterness, give into fear, succumb to hatred.  I’d say that the moments I saw people bristling with fury, viewing each other with suspicion and mistrust, were difficult.  I’d say that the moments where people I had once understood speak languages I just straight up didn’t get anymore were all but heartbreaking.

This isn’t to blame them, of course, nor even to suggest that there is someone to blame.  What I call bitterness and hatred, some might call justified anger.  That’s fine.  I am perfectly okay with not understanding certain things or even people.

But I do think that a number of people out there are not unhappy by choice.  I do think that a lot of people are bitter, angry and terrified for reasons that they think are beyond their control.  And some times, they are beyond their control.  But some times, they are not.

If I can say one thing about this year, it is that I am very happy now.  If I can tell you how I think you can be happy, as well, it is to forgive yourself for your indiscretions, to love yourself for the people you love, to be okay with disagreeing with people and still enjoying their company, to be okay with sometimes cutting people out of your life.

Do good.

Try your best.

Kiss someone.

Fight someone.

Eat a chicken sandwich.

‘Sup, 30.