<rant>
As the title says… today, I turned thirty years old… and I’m actually very excited about it.
I’ve been very lucky in my life — luckier than many, I continue to discover… I come from a great family that has never been well-off but has always been supportive of everything I do and dream. I have a decent job that has afforded my family a house and car — the house is old and needs work and the car is used but I have a home and a means to get from there to most places I need to. I am in overall excellent health, and today, I have been granted the privilege of making it to my thirtieth birthday, still breathing with blood pumping strong.
I wanted to emphasize the word “privilege” because I feel that this is exactly what being alive is… a privilege.
I have heard/observed a number of people in the last little while complaining about life and how it sucks and how getting old sucks and how “thirty” is a good time to “check-out” because thirty is old and remember getting old sucks and blah fuckin’ blah blah…
Yeah… I’m a bit irritated by this type of talk… I know everyone is entitled to their opinion and I rarely force my opinion, thoughts or beliefs on anyone semicolon however comma “it’s my party and I’ll rant if I want to”.
There are so many people that die everyday, way before what seems like should be “their time”. Whether it be from terminal illness, war, unfortunate accidents or any number of other things their privileged life was taken from them. Again, I say privileged because at any given point someone who decides that they are having an especially shitty day/life could choose to end yours. The almighty Cancer could pay you a visit and make your last days miserable for you and your family. Someone could drop their coffee in their lap and react by jerking the steering wheel and redirecting their vehicle into a head-on with yours. I could go on but I’m starting to depress myself…
For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to live more than one hundred years… Over ten years ago I was having severe chest pains and doctors found a spot on my lung… I thought I would never make it to twenty, let alone thirty. Forget three-digits. Turns out it was nothing. I’m fine. And you know what? Until I got the news that I was fine, not once did I think, “Oh, thank God… I was afraid I was going to have to endure ‘thirty’. Man that would have sucked!” And I’m willing to bet that if you got hit by a car on the eve of your thirtieth birthday and the doctors told you that there was nothing they could do for you, you’d smirk and breathe that sigh of relief, “Whew! Thanks Docs. That was cutting it close, wasn’t it.”
I realize that there are people in the world who are so much worse-off than I am that I’m not going to pretend to be able to fathom an inkling of what their personal hell lives must be like. I am quite sure that many victims of war, grave sickness, abuse, poverty, etc… might whole-heartedly disagree with me but this is partially my point… The life you have right now is a privilege and any one of a number of people/illnesses/things can take it from you in a heartbeat.
SOOO… the next time you get all angsty about your life and getting old, take a good long hard look at the cards you’ve been dealt… and if you really want to complain about turning thirty or getting old, go to the palliative care wing of your local childrens’ hospital and tell them all about it — I’m sure some of them would give anything to trade spaces with you to have the chance to live to see their tenth birthday. Or even go to your local senior citizens' home and tell them all about it — I’m sure some of them would give anything to add a few more years to see the birth of their first great-grandchild.
Fuckin’ live, dammit!
Keep breathing and live.
</rant>
—
steelie
PS: Thanks to Julé, Jared and Jen for the warm birthday wishes. Thirty is awesome.
