Being Thirty

Ah, but I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now.”  (from My Back Pages, by Bob Dylan)

The most difficult years of my life, unquestionably, were my thirties.  In my twenties I was dating.  I was in med school and then residency.  I was a doctor.  I was beginning to make some money. I felt very grown up. Little did I know. 

In my thirties I was buried in an avalanche of grown-up responsibilities, challenges and associated stresses.  I was now married. I had young children demanding of my time, energy and resources.  I had a home mortgage and all the unanticipated expenses associated with home ownership.  I was no longer in training and was just starting out in my career. 

It was a time when there was too little time to get everything done.  I had to make compromises.  Often, I felt I was doing a half-assed job at work alternating with doing a half-assed job at home.

There was constant fatigue and irritability.  My wife and I often called these times “the damage control years.”  The goal was to muddle through as best we could, do or say nothing stupid or damaging to our relationship and live with the mantra that “this too shall pass.”

It was around this time when I also became aware of my parents’ limitations as they entered in to their senior years.  They didn’t have all the answers and wisdom which I once attributed to them.  They didn’t have the same energy and resources to give as they once had. They were not so available to come to the rescue.  I had to reconcile that despite my burdens, they had lives and needs of their own.

As hard as my thirties were, they were not without good times and joyous occasions.  And, however difficult the problems seemed at the time, I can look back and see that they were rites of passage, no more than ‘first world problems’.   My thirties were an important piece of my life’s journey, a necessary and inevitable piece of becoming fully adult.

And sure enough, with my forties came calmer times. The kids were now older and in school.  Once children could sleep through the night, so could I.  Energy improved.  Mood improved.  I felt confident and competent in my career.  There were fewer financial surprises. There was even some occasional time for leisure; reading, fishing and vacations.

Now, it’s my children’s turn to take on the difficult challenges of new marriage, new home, young family and new career.  When I’m around them I feel their stress, not without experiencing some post-traumatic stress of my own.  I also understand that they will have to come to terms with the increasing limitations of this aging and all-too-fallible parent.  I can’t take away, nor do I wish away, their responsibilities, challenges or stress. After all, this too shall pass.  I wish them successful damage control and muddling through over these next years, so that by the time they are forty, they too can emerge competent, confident and fully adult.