Ready or not...

Most of my friends are in their 30s. My life insurance policy has considered me to be 30 for almost six months. I've been telling the treadmill and the elliptical that I'm 30 for the last couple of months, just because it seems more honest (and, really, it probably doesn't matter anyway, because as Minnams pointed out to me a couple of weeks ago, the elliptical is a huge liar when it's spitting out stats). Although this morning, I called myself 29 on the treadmill, just because it's the last day it's actually true. Fourteen hours left of my 20s, and I'm feeling a little weird about it.

Which doesn't make a ton of sense, I guess; it's not like I've done nothing with my life and all of a sudden I'm 30 and crap, I have to be a grown-up now. I sometimes feel like I was born a grown-up (although I certainly had my share of indiscretions and childishness and ridiculous behavior in my 20s) and that I'm finally catching up chronologically.

But I sort of think that's the issue: I've always been mature for my age, I've always been the youngest one at my job. But it's expected that someone in her 30s should be in a position like mine; the things that in my younger days made me a superstar now just make me average. And that's a weird place to be. So, to some extent, I'm experiencing the same slap in the face now that I did when I got to college and realized I was no longer the smartest kid in the class, and that I'd in fact probably peaked around eighth grade. And, probably because in my youth it had all come so easily to me, I'd never really learned how to be disciplined about school or to develop good study habits, and now I was just mediocre. I finally figured it out and got my act together, although probably not really until my junior semester abroad (10 years ago! God, I really am old).

But anyway, maybe it's not the worst thing that I'm no longer a stand-out. I don't think I actually have the ambition or the stamina to sustain rock star status professionally. And it's not like I'm hitting 30 with any mountainous regrets, or with anything undone that I really wanted to have done by this point in my life.

So, okay. I'm ready now. Bring it on.