On the edge of turning 30

I'm not preoccupied with my age. I've never talked about how other people at a bar look young, or looked at photos from college and thought, "Wow, we all looked young," because I think I look the same and so does everyone else.

I've successfully avoided material responsibility. I like that one day I could up and leave without having custody of heirlooms or valued items. (There's not much I own that I'd miss, so when my apartment was burglarized a couple years ago it left me unrattled. I did like that camera, though.)

By all accounts, I'm less mature (but probably nicer) now than I was at 14, 18 or 24.

In two weeks I turn 30. This crept up on me. A couple months ago it seemed like I might as well have been 19, but the numeric flip suddenly caught me like a fist to the eye, and all of a sudden I'm reading "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" a few times a week and the e.e. cummings Buffalo Bill poem about how do you like your blueeyed boy, Mr Death?

Item: Last week I was at a social function for work. Speaking to someone younger than me, I mentioned my age, and got the reply, "Wow, I never guessed that you're 29. You look so much younger." I felt pleased, then I felt sad that this pleased me.

Item: The next day I was at work. Speaking to someone roughly my age, I mentioned that I'm 29, and received the reply, "Really? I didn't know you were only 29." I think it was meant as a compliment. This startled me, then I felt sad that this startled me.

Item: I've been the same weight and height for a decade but I'm becoming self-conscious about weight. Visiting my parents' house last month, I saw a picture of my dad when he was 41, and felt reassured that he looked thin and youthful in the picture -- as young as a handful of people my own age. This reassured me.

Item: After nine years of Marlboros -- the last two having transitioned from manageable affectation to full addiction -- I stopped smoking at the beginning of August. Abruptly, and with no real withdrawal symptoms. It's getting close to a month-and-a-half now, and today I realized that not smoking is making me feel old. That I think this way shows that marketing has left me mangled and corrupted. I won't smoke because I know it will kill me, a conclusion that shows I acknowledge my own mortality and am, therefore, no longer young.

Item: I've become a bit paralyzed about planning the 30th birthday itself. I'm playing with numbers and locations. On the verge of reserving a private room, I decided that I didn't want to focus on numbers thresholds or introducing people to each other. This might just be an excuse. I'll do something, but I'm a poor planner, and the fact that this is a landmark year has pushed me to procrastinate.

Item: I am now nostalgic for landlines, which is the equivalent of our great-grandparents being nostalgic for telegrams. I liked having friends' numbers taped on the wall and being excited when there was a message on my answering machine. Because of Blackberries and cell phones, nothing is escapable.

And then thinking about this makes me feel like a lazy self-indulgent douche who should consider himself lucky that he doesn't have substantial things to worry about.