You Still Rock It Like a Badass (more responsibly): Welcome to Your 30s.

Oh, hello there! Don't you look mighty hip, yet respectable in your business casual attire which also covers up those nature-inspired tattoos very well. Like most of my friends this year, I‘m about to turn 30. People tell me, “30s are totally better than your 20s. You’re just more stable and you know yourself better.” Well, perhaps I do know myself better. The “more stable” thing, though? Don’t get me wrong, I'm excited to start a new decade so I can wipe some invisible slate clean, meditate on my true passions and hug people more, or something, but I still don't know exactly what stable means. My 20’s definitely were not perfect, but I did have a full-time job, more money saved, I blew my nose in actual tissues, lived above ground in a place without bars on the windows, and for a time even had a washer/dryer. Still, I am happier with life now than I was ten years ago, so game on, 30.

I have observed a few things that start to change though. These things start out small, usually by becoming overly controlling of your social activities. You don’t even realize you’re doing anything differently at first. Let’s use the example of brunch. In your 20s you do things like go to brunch because you’re lazy, hung over, and haven't had anything edible in the kitchen in weeks. When you reach your 30s, brunch is still a thing you do sometimes, but now there is heavy planning involved. You actually go home early on purpose the night before brunch to ensure that you are NOT hung over. You plan in advance for at least a week or two. You put it in your calendar, and you will make sure to get to the restaurant by 11 or 12, A) To beat the crowds of annoying hung over people, and B) You suddenly wake up naturally at 7am, even when you don’t have to. Sometimes you actually have to eat breakfast just to tide yourself over until brunch. This is the type of behavior you don’t want to admit to your retirement-age parents, because it will cause them to clap and squeal with excitement over having something new to bond over.

So, back to the endless planning of brunch. After 25 text messages, you will call your friend to confirm. The conversation from your end goes something like this:

- “Ok, cool so the 18th? Yeah…11:30 would be good, but let’s make it 12, cool. Yeah, no that’s great….I can still get some shit done afterwards. Oh, you’re right, that place gets crowded by like 1:30. WAIT. No…nevermind…well, it’s just are you sure you want to go there? (calmly) Well, I don’t know…I’m not totally sold on their lobster hollandaise. Ok, yeah, good idea. No, we’ll just brainstorm. E-mail me…yay, I’m totally looking forward to it too!”

Even after all that planning, there’s a 90% chance that one of you will cancel for a myriad of reasons. On the off chance that you are, in fact, very hung over the morning of your scheduled brunch you will have to just stay on the couch until 5pm nursing a mild headache while watching box sets of Northern Exposure. Personally, I’ve decided I’ll just spontaneously engage in what I like to somewhat euphemistically refer to as Epic Brunch. This is still brunch, but more awesome because it is domesticated, requiring less stressed out planning, and transformed into sitting around a table at someone’s house eating and drinking all day long with no makeup on, in pretty much whatever you just slept in. Up until recently, whatever I just slept in was also probably whatever I was wearing out the night before, and I had makeup on, but only because it happened to conveniently still be smeared across my face. I’ll keep those memories alive in order to remain humble by remembering what pain feels like, but for now if anyone is interested in having a spontaneous Epic Brunch sometime in the near future, please be sure to call, text, or e-mail me to plan it.

What Do You Mean, Jesus Doesn't Taste Like Marshmallows?

When I was 8, I had to go to CCD classes at the Catholic Church so I could make my Communion. I was not a fan of this at all, but was however, convinced that the Eucharist, aka “the body of Christ” was a marshmallow. Why else would everyone wait in line to receive it? So I went to the classes, learned all the prayers (which I only pretended to say), confessed made-up sins to the priest…anything to be able to receive the holy marshmallow. One day after class, I saw a stash of wafers in one of the rooms in the church and I couldn’t resist…I shoved one in my mouth, of course expecting it to taste like sweet, sweet marshmallow, alas, it tasted like stale cardboard. I felt cheated, and cursed out loud. It was the same feeling I got when I swallowed that first gulp of the overly hyped, now long defunct Crystal Pepsi. I still had a few weeks left of classes to get through, now knowing that Jesus tasted sad. It also suddenly made sense to me that some of the little old ladies would dip theirs in the wine. Shaking my head silently, I figured they must be trying to jazz it up.

Those last few weeks became pretty much intolerable. I was already the least enthusiastic kid in the class, and now slacked off even more, though I got mildly excited at the thought of starting a revolution with the three other kids at my table. I had always made a point of staying completely quiet and as uninvolved as possible, like I was the sole member of a silent protest. I tried whispering really lame commentary to the other kids while the nun taught us about the 12 disciples. They shushed me and said I’d get them in trouble. So I casually asked them if they believed what we were being told, and if they believed in God at all. They shrugged and rolled their eyes. Still bored, and with no one aiding me in my disruptiveness, I told them my friend said that Jesus was a Jew. Finally, I got a reaction from one girl in the form of a confused look, to which I just said, “Yep,” simply because I didn’t have any further information at that time. I didn’t want to tell them about the wafers either, because I figured they probably already knew what I now knew and I didn’t want to embarrass myself further by saying something like, “I tried the wafer, and it does not at all taste like a marshmallow.” I did not go on to make my Confirmation…shockingly.

I guess sometimes life doesn’t taste like marshmallows when you might expect it to. Shit, sometimes you even wish it at least tasted like cardboard. I may not have appreciated those classes at the time, but twenty-two years later I can honestly say I learned something there about patience and striving to let go of expectations of the unknown…but perhaps Jesus did taste like marshmallows. We’ll never know, so I guess for now he’ll keep making cameos on grilled cheese sandwiches.