Before I turn 30

 When I turned 20, I had PTDS—Post Twenty Depression Syndrome. When I turned 25, I had Post and Pre Twenty-Five Depression Syndrome. It took a few months to get over it. It took a few months to accept the fact that I can’t slow age down or turn back time, or make up lost time.

I am now 4 months away from turning 30. I’m wondering if I’ll have Post or Pre Thirty Depression Syndrome. I’m wondering if this next age mile-marker will be any different than the decade preceding it.

The reason I had PTDS before, had a lot to do with one major situation. The situation was when I looked at my life, where I was at 20 and 25, I was not happy. I was unhappy with who I was, where I was, and what I’d done. I wasn’t where I wanted to be or where I thought I should be at that age. I felt stuck.

At 20, the PTDS served to be a small kick in the pants. I started to make a few decisions to alter the direction I was headed with my life.

At 25, the PTDS was an even bigger kick in the pants. The decisions I made then were even bigger and more drastic. I think I might have gone a little crazy, but looking back I know the point of the decisions weren’t the decisions themselves but the fact that I was actually making decisions. I stopped hiding behind false securities and started taking risks. As a result of those risks I began to do the very thing I had always been afraid to do.

I started failing.

I failed and failed and failed some more. For every 20 failures I had 1 or 2 successes. But we were moving. We were shaking. We were moving and shaking and I was no longer stuck.

I forget about those failures sometimes. I selectively only remember my successes. Those are the fun stories to tell people and blog about. But if I lined my failures up next to my successes I’d get ICHIDS—I Can’t Handle It Depression Syndrome.

There were a lot of failures.

But the main thing I learned from those failures is, if you learn anything from your failures, than it isn’t really a failure, is it? If you learn something about yourself, your God, your relationships, or about life then you really didn’t fail at all. You just didn’t achieve what you conceived to be success—everything working out the way you wanted it.

That’s not failure. That’s awesome.

So 4 months from now I’ll be turning 30. Will I look around at my life, wonder where the time went, and feel depressed because I’m not where I want to be?

Maybe.

But the PTDS of 20 years old and 25 years old were huge motivators to do big things. So if I do fall into depression, feel like I’m not where I want to be, feel behind, feel stuck, maybe that’ll be a spring board for some new ideas, new dreams, new decisions. It’ll suck at first and then it’ll rock. It might lead to some future failures, also known as successes in disguise.

Maybe we should call them Suc-ailures or Fail-ccesses.

It could become a thing.

Still, I’m sad to soon be leaving 29 behind. I love being 29. It’s hip, and cool, and, let’s face it, a whole lot of sexy. You’ve been a good year, 29.

But all those things just might be applied to 30. I guess I’ll find out when I cross over to the other side.

Race you there…