This is the story of a column that refused to be written.

We all know that writing isn't easy, if it were, everyone would do it.  No part of it is a breeze; it's hard to think of something good, it's hard to start writing it, it's hard to finish it and it's hard to revise it.  Writers write, yes that's true, but like everyone else, writers also don't write.  And that's the situation I find myself in now.

Just last week I turned 30. Usually this sort of semi-momentous neurosis-inducing life event is perfect fodder for me; expounding upon the trivial inanities of daily life is kinda my thing.  But I've had an awfully difficult time being able to put words down about it.  I started and stopped work on maybe eight different column ideas and angles.  Because I don't want to spend a thousand words lamenting the passage of time and I certainly don't want to sob onto my laptop for the time it would take to write something like that.  And, I'm well aware that people are older than I am and that making a stink about every round numbered birthday is horribly clichéd. 

Obviously there's something about 30 that's really bothersome, even though it's less momentous than other birthdays I've had.  Certainly turning 13 was a big one, what with the whole Bar Mitzvah, becoming-a-man-ness that surrounded it.  Then there was turning 18 and the ability to vote against Rudy Guiliani before I even graduated from High School, that was a good one on many levels.  And, of course, turning 21 can't be left out of the mix.  As an anxious person, there was nothing that caused me more agita than the prospect of trying to drink in New York City bars while underage.  It was doable, it happened (a lot), but it was always nerve-racking.  To be free of that anxiety was liberating, albeit in a kind of messed up way.  I swear I'm not an alcoholic.

But, that does lead me to where I'm going.  As I've written about once or twice, I excel at drinking.  It's a hobby that is uniquely suited to my temperament, since it is equal parts effervescence and anger, and so am I.  Usually around a big birthday like this, people make resolutions, people take stock of what it means to grow older and what it means to stay the same.  Me, I'm just wondering why I still get so damn drunk.

I guess I figured at some point it would just become the case that I would cease getting accidentally drunk.  Sometimes I honestly don't intend for it to happen, it just does.  Let me give you an example.  A few weeks ago, when it was still nice enough to sit in the park wearing a t-shirt and hang out with friends, I did exactly that.  We sat and drank and brainstormed and ten hours later I was vomiting like it was freshman year of college and I've spent a casual Friday night pounding Bud Lights without the dinner or body mass to back it up.  The only difference, of course, was that, instead of being able to shake it off with a couple cups of coffee, I spent the whole next day parked on the couch, trembling like I was out of methadone.  But the thing on my mind wasn't the extent of my hangover, nor was it my apparent inability to remember anything that had occurred during the last four hours of the day.  No, all I kept thinking about as I shuddered there wondering if I would ever be allowed back into the bar on my corner, was when it was gonna stop.  And by "it" I don't mean my hangover, I mean the unending impulse to act as childishly as possible at all times.

You see it in the undying devotion to all things athletic.  You see it in the persistence of the juvenile sense of humor that causes every stray bit of custard around someone's mouth to be absolutely hilarious.  You would think that with real life issues and concerns breathing down my neck, I wouldn't be able to set aside quite so much time for these childish pursuits.  But they maintain.  There is simply no stopping them.

And then I turned 30.

If I had written this before turning 30, the discussion of my unbreakable will to be childish would have tormented me, it would have cost me hours of sleep and caused me to re-evaluate every decision I've ever made, from my choice of career to my choice of shirt this morning.  But, sitting here now, on the other side of 30, I'm not as bothered by it all.  Suddenly, there is only acquiescence.  And the knowledge that being a certain age will neither cause certain things to end (my life) as much as it won't cause certain other things to exist (my maturity).  It is simply the case that now I am 30, and this fact can mean as much or as little as I want it to.

Whenever I mentioned what was happening to me to people already past the age of 30, I generally got the same response.  No matter how old, no matter who the person, their response was always along the lines of, "you think that's bad, just wait 'till you turn..."  Even people who had turned 30 six months ago made the same remark.  This, of course, was really upsetting.  First, it makes it seem like everything past 30 must be ungodly awful if six months later you are pining to be back at 29.  And second is the notion that being on the other side of 30 means a clarity of hindsight that makes everything I felt up until that moment totally moot.  But it's unreasonable to expect that people aren't bothered by turning 30, it invariably signals something in our lives, even though I still have no idea what that thing might be.  I just know that I'll never tell anyone about how awful it is being on the other side to make them feel better (or worse) about turning 30.  I'm just gonna say, "I felt exactly the same way when I was about to be 30 and it's gonna be ok, bro."  Maybe it'll turn out to be true.