Twenty-nine Plus Ten

Hmm. About fourteen years ago--or exactly fourteen years ago--I was co-hosting a huge party in a loft on 20th Street in honor of my twenty-fifth birthday. My roommate and I had been listening to the Gin Blossoms all afternoon in anticipation (her album; I believe I've mentioned that when left to my own devices I listen only to music recorded before 1978), and we'd played the song "29" over and over again. I can't remember the lyrics all that well, but there was one line that stuck: "29 you'd think I'd know better, living like a kid."

I remember this line because I remember when I was listening to the song that I couldn't imagine being 29, not even close. It seemed truly impossible, so impossible that I melodramatically decided perhaps I was not destined to reach that ripe old age. The number sounded ridiculous. Twenty-nine-year-olds were not kids. They were full fledged adults. Or should be, I thought even then. Twenty-five meant it was okay to dance until 5 in the morning with everyone you knew surrounded by Christmas lights and a makeshift bar on your boss's desk in the loft space she'd let you borrow because although she was so old--pushing forty--she remembered twenty-five, maybe a little too well. Twenty-nine year olds wore suits and sneakers over stockings and read the paper on the subway. They went to bed on time, and met each other for dinner and a single, tasteful glass each of fairly-priced red wine.

Now, tonight, I am thirty-nine, and although it sounds much younger than it used to, and it feels like a relief to be on the safe side of forty still, it also feels like standing with one foot poised over a landmine. Not that I've been in that exact situation before, but now--in an unlikely turn of events--I can imagine that more easily than I used to be able to glimpse the far side of thirty. It's not that forty as an age to be seems old anymore. In fact, so many of my friends and loved ones are over forty now that the number should have lost all of its resonance. Some of the fifty-year-olds I know seem to be living like kids, to paraphrase the Gin Blossoms. But I didn't expect that at thirty-nine I'd still feel so in progress, if that makes any sense. I have this unpleasant sensation that I'm running out of time in the molding department, that by forty--or shortly thereafter--I'd better have a pretty good idea who I am.

Unfortunately for those who know me, I'm not one of those people who let birthdays--mine or anyone else's--pass unnoticed, unassessed. I want them to mean something, need them to reveal something or point me in a certain direction, and so far--although it's only been an hour--thirty-nine is holding her cards pretty close to the vest.

I guess we shall see.