Almost 30
Musings prompted by Spotify shuffle
3 Ideas
Time is complex. Too complex to understand. It is both short and long and moves at different speeds.
It is good to ask for help. Especially in the moments when it is hardest. If you have to draft a message and delete it 3 times before sending, that's okay. Just send it.
Take the side door when there is a line out the front.
2 Things
Season 2 of The Bear is really fucking good. A simple type of enjoyable and relatable.
The Colorado Blue Columbine
1 Essay
Hi there. I was listening to the freshmen, and it is kind of hitting me hard right now because I feel like there is a phenomenon in life of thinking we are older and wiser than we are. And I think I am falling into that trap right now. I am turning 30 and have been kind of wishing for it to come. I keep saying that 30 isn't old, but definitely isn't young. And that is true to some extent. I don't feel super young anymore. I am having moments of noticing my age. I keep coaching 6th and 7th graders and their high school graduation years keep feeling far away. Now i am on 2029s... I don't really feel as relatable to kids in the same way I did five years ago. I used to be able to joke as almost an older brother, but now I feel like I am so much older and I look at the kids like true children even if I try to treat them like adults sometimes. Aging is weird.
But anyways. I have been talking this week with girlfriend about a lack of control. I have been feeling trapped. Part of it is I started a new job and have to be in meetings I don’t believe are valuable. Moving back into corporate life, even at a startup, has more friction than I expected.
There have been moments over the past couple of years where I have also felt aged. Like old enough to have experience in something i am going through. And the wisdom to take those past learnings and apply them to my current situation. I now realize that looking at my life month to month is not very helpful for my mental state. Change in circumstance takes like a year minimum. And looking back or forward 6 months only really tells the direction that I am moving. It is too hard to perceive how far I have gone in such a short period of time.
I have been feeling old around some of my friends. Like I don't really go out. Mostly because I don't have money, but also because I enjoy sitting around in quiet or chill spaces. The people with early or mid 20s energy just make me tired. I am trying to get into dinner parties, and I like breweries that close at 11 so I have a reason to go home and sleep.
And I think that all of the above reasons for feeling old are why the current feeling of being trapped is so silly. I am so zoomed in on a job that has only spent 3 weeks in my life. All of my reactions feel somewhat dramatic. Everything isn't going how I want, 'This sucks. This job sucks. I want to go back to working alone.' I feel like I have been brought back to 24 when my mind was pulled by so many forces outside my control.
This verse started the rabbit hole.
For the life of me, I cannot remember
What made us think that we were wise and we'd never compromise
For the life of me, I cannot believe
We'd ever die for these sins, we were merely freshmen
The verse made me laugh because I was back at Gonzaga as a teacher. Laughing at all the stupid shit the freshmen did. In the faculty lunch room for the first four months of the school year there would daily stories about how the freshmen have no idea what is going on or how to act. Their decision making and expectations were not well aligned to their new environment.
I feel right now like I am in the same place. I am stressed going into 1:1s thinking that I am going to die for the mistakes I make in the first 30 days of a new job.
Maybe 30 is just realizing where I am.
I had a moment yesterday in the midst of the stress when I was walking through the park by my apartment. I was about 100 steps into the grass when I realized I could just choose to react differently on the walk. I have the power to choose my own headspace. So I asked myself, 'What would a chill, confident person be thinking about?' Definitely not silly work stress. It took about 5 minutes, but it worked.
Maybe it is silly to try to make 30 out to be anything at all. I have been looking to move quickly into it. Almost skipping a year to get there. Hoping to gain some of the knowledge and self love that seems to come to people in their 30s. Hoping that if I focus on where i am going, I'll get there faster. But noticing that, I think of the moments of freshmen walking into class the first week. I think I know where I am and how I act. But that focus on the future and where I should be is causing me stress now. What a silly early 20s move to borrow anxiety from the future to ruin my present moment.
The place I got to was annoyingly simple. I am frustrated with the position I put myself in. But the situation is better than it was a 6 months ago. I don't have much leverage to quickly make the big improvements I dream of. So all I can do is put my head down and do the work that is in front of me.
Or just live in the present and do the best I can. Try to keep up with the best people I can find. And give myself space to freak out a little bit.
Hope everyone has a nice weekend