So I recently celebrated my 30th birthday earlier this week – on Wednesday, to be exact, for anyone out there who didn’t send a card or a singing gorilla-gram or something.  No worries if you accidentally overlooked my most sacred of days, though – we still managed to have a grand, old time, complete with pizza and presents and a delicious, homemade cake with enough candles to put a small rocket into orbit!

The only thing is, I’m honestly not quite sure what I think about turning the big 3-0 just yet.

I mean, on one hand there’s a lot to look forward to while entering into this next great stage of my life – buying my first house, taking this little writing career of mine to new heights, and even the prospect of building a family and having kids to share all of my brilliant witticisms with … even if they are destined to grow up to be doctors and teachers instead of mere humor columnists like myself!  In some ways it’s actually kind of exciting, like my early 20s were when I was first heading out into the world to figure out what I wanted out of life and all that it had to offer a devastatingly handsome funny guy from Northern Michigan…

On the other hand, though, could these impending 30s possibly be any more daunting?!  For starters, even the idea of having kids is a scary concept in and of itself, even if I am the guy who goes to Disney World three times a month and lives in a house filled with a surprising number of toys and video games for being child-free!  Looking at my retirement fund is even scarier yet, so no pressure on that whole writing career thing!  And as for hunting down and successfully purchasing the home that said children will most likely grow up in … well, I suppose that one should be a little easier, what with the real estate market being in the proverbial crapper right now, so at least my 30s have that going for them.

I think my real problem here is that at the ripe, old age of 30, I’m not sure whether I’m actually supposed to feel old or young at this point.  And I’m sure that many of my more experienced readers would be quick to argue that 30 is still relatively young in the grand scheme of things, but at the same time, I’d have to be senile already to deny that 40 is now officially on the radar! Whereas up until now, the age of 40 has always been a source of comedic relief for all of us young folks, a la the Over the Hill marketing scheme that sells countless black balloons and crepe paper and fake tombstones every year, but now … now 40 is a very real destination that’s standing there waiting for me on the horizon.  It may be tiny and still only visible through binoculars at this point, but it’s there, just like 16 awaits kids anxious to get their driver’s licenses or 21 when the time has come for them to buy their first beer … legally, anyways!

But the more that I think about it, maybe this isn’t something that has to be figured out today, or even this week for that matter.  There’s still plenty of leftover birthday cake in the kitchen – boasting Mom’s absolutely incredible chocolate fudge frosting, no less, along with an impressive pile of new LEGO sets from my wife that are just waiting to get put together, so if procrastination got me this far, why stop the celebration short?!  Something tells me that I’ll still have plenty of time to figure out what these dreaded and wonderful 30s are actually supposed to be about after the final bite has been savored and the last brick has been set…

It is still cool for 30 year-olds to play with LEGOs, right?