The Big Three Ohhhhhh

My birthday is easy to remember. Before 2001, it was the same number used in America to dial for an emergency. It still is, but the significance drastically shifted. On my 21st birthday, around the same time my mother was calling to tell me how happy she is that I am around, terrorists snuffed out thousands of lives, changing the world and canceling my jazz club cocktail plans. I watched CNN and prayed instead. I still get funny looks when they check my ID.

Tomorrow I reach the three decade milestone. The big 3-0. A nice round number that should probably be irrelevant but it really means a lot. We divide each other by decades, because it's a convenient category. I'll start thinking about how all those folks in their twenties look and act so young, kind of like how I see college students now. So, on one day, not only does a new page turn, but a new chapter begins. And frankly, I'm looking forward to it.

The 20s are tough. Not as tough as seventh grade, but close. During the 20s, we stop being full-time students and take responsibility for our lives, and it's a crash course of hard knocks. I learned how I was really wired, how I should have spent my schooling. Don't get me wrong, great things happened, and great friends, not to mention a great God, carried me through. I experienced culture, life, love, brokenness, healing and redemption, and every one at a cost, leaving part of the old man behind. But here's hoping the next decade will be less bruising.

Friends and colleagues have raved how great the 30s are. These are the times when we finally get to apply those hard-knock lessons, where we stop self-obsessing and live life with work, family and a clear sense of what's important.

So bring it, fourth decade. I've got some pretty daggum high expectations.