Thursday, July 23, 2009 | by nathan

29

I’m twenty-nine years old today. It seems weird to me that almost three decades should have gone by since my birth, because I spend so much of my time feeling very young, in general. Still, though I am generally very healthy and I still feel that my best, most productive and creative years are ahead of me, I have become, over the last year, increasingly aware of the odd nature of time, and have realized that mine is not unlimited in this world. My chances and choices no longer feel as infinite as they did in high school, college, or even my early twenties.

I remember that feeling of limitless possibility eventually becoming, around about the age of 20 or 21, less a field of endless freedom and more a prison whose bars were the infinity of things I’d be leaving behind to choose one single path in life, and all my fears of failure, of taking the wrong path and ending up unhappy. If I could tell then-me something it would be not to fear failure but to remember that we always live through it and, if we pray for wisdom and discernment, we come out of it better and healthier than we went in. I know this because the first half of my twenties were marked by some wild flailing about, getting my heart broken, dropping out of Yale, then coming home and just kinda partying for a couple years, sewing my wild oats. I think of the day I turned 19, how terrified that guy would be to see how the next ten years would go – getting married to a man, for God’s sake.

I’ve felt, for the past year really, that things have really been changing a lot for me; this seems to happen every seven to eight years. The last one was the major transformation and healing I experienced after spending six months traipsing around Europe and that eventually led to my coming out. This one, I’m not sure; I do know I’m learning a lot about my creative self, the part of me that has to write, that is compelled to put words to paper and feels he must read them aloud, as terrifying as that seems. This part of me isn’t new; he’s been around since I learned to read at 3.

I will probably take some time later today and journal some goals for myself, some things I’d like to accomplish before I reach my 30s, because I find that doing this helps me, as against my right-brained tendencies as it is, to hold myself to account. I’d like, for instance, to greet my thirties in the best physical shape of my life, and I’d really, really like to attend the San Francisco Writer’s Conference in February, completed manuscript in hand, ready to meet some agents. (Anyone wanna come along?)

Mostly, this year, I’m praying for the only things I ever know to pray for – a little more wisdom, a little more compassion, a little more courage. I have everything I could possibly need right now and more; I think it’s going to be an incredible year. I’m grateful for this, so all I can say is – Thank You. Thank You. Thank You.

This I Believe

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