Thoughts on Turning Thirty

I turn thirty tomorrow and want to share a few thoughts on the subject of leaving one decade for another. Getting older has never bothered me, and whenever someone asks what are my feelings about turning twenty-two, twenty-five, etc. I like to joke it “beats the alternative.”

It is strange to think it has been ten years since I left my teen years behind, but I was ready for that transition and I feel ready for this one too. There are a few things which are affecting my preparation for the completion of my tridecennial year.

The first is I have enjoyed my twenties. There is the idea your twenties are a time of self-discovery, personal reflection, adventure, and trying new things, and I have loved these aspects of my last decade. I have questioned, explored and contemplated who I am, and my life has been enriched by this process. Looking back, it is hard to believe who I was ten years ago, in many ways I hardly recognize the 20 year-old Tim, and I am okay with that. I am relieved to not be the same person I was then. Having enjoyed this season of learning, I am ready to move on. I do not want to keep asking the same questions forever. I have some ideas now of who I am, what I love, and what I want to do with my life. I feel I have accomplished the goal of my "self-discovery twenties." Now is the time for my thirties, a season of launching out into what I feel called to do, becoming who I want to be, and the beginning of those things which my twenties have prepared me for.

I have been basing these ideas about the nature of our twenties and thirties off of what I have observed and what I have read from sociologists and bloggers, but I also realize it was at the age of thirty when Jesus began his three years of ministry. Jesus, in part, was following the rabbinic traditions of his time (which specified not beginning ministry until thirty) and I think this tradition acknowledges the same anticipation I feel now. This does not mean I am prepared or expect to not make any more mistakes or discoveries, I most certainly will. I do not feel like a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis, but I do feel like a fledgling bird ready to try jumping out of the nest.

The second factor is that I have completed the major life goals I had hoped to accomplish by now. I was twenty-five when Emily and I were married and we had hoped to wait five years(ish) before having children, and we also wanted to live in Europe for two years. We have enjoyed this time of being married without children (no, we are not pregnant!), and we have lived in France for eighteen months now. God has been good and my life has unfolded, for the most part, as I had hoped.

The third thing is I am curious who 40 year-old Tim will be. What goals and dreams, adventures and misadventures, lie between me now and me then? Just as I look back on myself ten years ago and think “wow, I have come a long way,” I hope in ten years I will be able to do the same. This is not a reflection of dissatisfaction with who I am at the present, but a desire to not be static as a person. I hope I have not “peaked” at thirty.

So here's to being thirty and the adventures to come!