Thirty
I turned thirty today. We went to my favorite wine bar tonight where Joe joked that “it’s all downhill from here.” Depending on whether you align with me or my brother Simon, downhill is easier, but uphill is improving. I’ll reassess at forty.
I’ve wanted to think I’m one for birthdays, but I can’t remember having been. I like to celebrate with friends and family, but that’s rarely the day of a birthday, and so birthdays themselves are quieter and introspective.
Within last ten years, I’ve studied in Lyon, completed an undergraduate degree, moved to Belgium, started and ended a serious relationship, moved to Pittsburgh, become a photographer, moved back to Austin three times, learned a new kind of love and respect for a partner, and am no engaged to be married in January. I’ve worked largely one job throughout numerous consulting gigs, and had the privilege to work with a diverse group of skilled individuals. Ten years ago, I had no expectations to where I’d be at thirty, and beyond broad—but more descriptive strokes—forty is similarly veiled.
In no particular order, these are ideas that I wish I’d internalized when younger. Wishing that doesn’t mean I now have, but damn would I benefit now from having thought them earlier.
I justify risks in what they do for a partner and myself while priding myself in flexibility, to the exclusion of validating risks in their personal benefit. Move to Belgium for a partner’s degree—it wasn’t ostensibly for me, but damn was it a way to live in Western Europe for another couple of years. Move to Pittsburgh to allow a budding relationship to grow, and now we’re soon to marry. But left to my own devices, I’m risk-averse and veer into inertia. No major moves on my own. Stay with the same company, working the same field, do what’s reliable. I could’ve tried to stay in the Bay after graduating high school, but instead sought a degree I don’t use in a city that I (again) can’t wait to leave. I kept telling myself—while moving abroad and making different moves—that the opportunity still existed, without realizing its benefit waned as I gained other experience. I was afraid to leave Texas because of my father’s age, and ten years later, I’m now only more afraid. I want to take risks for myself while the opportunity remains, and wish I’d realized my counter-bias when first making these decisions.
I wish I’d been earlier comfortable in confrontation. I am and have been a confrontational person, but being confrontational and being comfortably confrontational are wildly different. I’m not conflict-averse, and I have to work myself up to what is often necessary confrontation. As a queer child attending small-town Texas schools, confrontation was the only way to make space for myself, but it was unpleasant. This mindset extended far beyond existential conflict and into daily life and the workplace—as the only designer working in engineering-driven startups and later small companies, I had to defend the value of my work by providing counter-evidence against detractors. I dislike confrontation to such an extent that simply contradicting another’s opinion feel like confrontation, but I choose that over avoidance. I can’t not make space for myself, and I worry that if I find myself somewhere that’s unnecessary, I’ll have a hard time breathing. I wish that at some earlier point, I’d learned that it’s okay for others to think I’m wrong, or that one can be regarded wrong while still being safe.
My fiancée and I want children, and while my family ties me to Texas, this is no longer a safe place to entertain pregnancy let alone childbirth. Let alone raising children. Let alone being queer. Some say Austin’s an oasis, but if this oasis is the best we have, it’s a shame. I want to live somewhere I’m not looking over my shoulder, and where being a confrontational, cis white man doesn’t conveniently further passing privilege. I was encouraged to travel and see new places, but I wish I’d considered that I could leave. Home was always Texas—despite the disdain—and the solution to my dissonance will be to make home elsewhere. Twenty-somethings don’t need a life plan, but I wish I’d thought further than casting out and coming back.
I’m getting together with family Saturday morning, and friends Sunday evening to celebrate. Today’s been introspection, Saturday will be celebration, and I’ll see where I am in ten years.