At some time after midnight, March 4th, 1979, in St. Augustine's hospital, BrYan John Johnston hit the world by storm.
It's been a long and hard slog with many ups and many downs, and I couldn't have done it without my mom and dad's support.
It's a weird thing to be moving from my twenties to my thirties. I had a weird experience when I went from nineteen to twenty; was just as depressing then as it is now, but I count my blessings now and they're far more than back then!
I've still got an awesome mom (even though we have our hiccups, I love my mom dearly) and now I have an awesome wife (who at the time of nineteen to twenty, was my awesome girlfriend). Also, I have an awesome relationship with God, and have an awesome home too!
My life is going great, but is crazy hectic right now. The devil of busyness has wrapped its icy claws around my life and I've got a long struggle to overcome it; one step at a time though! And just imagine, God may bless us with kids soon, and THEN who's going to be busy??
I'm not sure about this 30 years thing; it's another day, but it's that mental milestone that just seems to set the tone for the future. Next milestone is FORTY which is just nuts, because then it's FIFTY, and then it's DEAD. Crazy man, crazy. Life just flies by WAY too fast! This year will be the twelfth year out of High School and the eighth year with a postgraduate degree; and back then life was so much simpler, and the world felt like it was wide open and all ours to conquer. Now? Well, now our ambitions to amass millions, or tour Europe, or live in a New York corner studio apartment, are one step further to the grave and our time is becoming more valuable and critical.
What's next? Complete a law degree? Settle down? Buy a house? Change jobs? Become middle management? It's just too much and seems too sensible. I'm not ready for sensible. I'm a kid at heart. I'm a fool. I'm a brat. I don't need to be older, and I don't need that stamp of THIRTY to remind me that I need to grow some responsibility. What's life going to be like on the other side of this dream? Will my brain just miraculously switch over to being a suit and tie G-man with a refined sense of humour and no time for rugby? Will I find my body struggling to hold back the fat and will I grow hair in places there just shouldn't be hair? What about my influence with young adults? Will I lose my credibility as a young adult leader because I'm too old for them? Hectic, too much to decipher, but only time will tell...
In a warping of Jason Coomer's famous words ten years ago, "who wants to be a twenty-nine year old clown, when you can be a thirty year old clown?" ... Thanks Jase, you're a star :)
God bless all,
See you on the flip-side.
Bryan
Had I stumbled across this randomly, and were there no names mentioned, I would still know the author. Rest assured that as you turn 30 you sound not a day past your 18th. And that's probably a good thing, in case you were wondering ;)
ReplyDeleteThe most important thing to remember as you look into your future, is that the milestone that immediately follows your 30th is William's 33rd ... so there will always be someone older and crankier whose wisdom ... BWAHAHA ... whose mistakes you can learn from.
But the best advice I can give is that it's definitely worth getting into middle management. Otherwise by the time you're 32 (watching helplessly as 33 lines you up in its sights) there is a whole lot of middle to manage.
So Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a --- wait, sorry, wrong script.
Being 30 is just like being 20, but with more money. What's not to enjoy? Have a great decade Brat :)
Twylite
Never a truer word spoken in jest... although knowing Twy he wasn't joking.
ReplyDeleteOn the kids thing. Erm... well, a couple of days ago Maria and Bronwen were out, and I looked around and thought, "Hey, free time!", and then stood around some more like a stunned bunny thinking, "Hmm... free time, what do I do with it?", and then I sat down and did some work I'd been meaning to do. And thats with one kid...
Oh, and just forget about gym or any other exercise programme (unless carry the baby, washing bottles and cleaning the house count), exercise would require that elusive "free time" thingymabob, so forget about managing the middle.
Older. Check. Crankier. Check. Richer. Check. Happier? Double-check.
... and thats all that matters isn't it?