Ramblings on life at 30
I’ve gone through many different phases of what I wanted to be when I grow up.
I dreamt of being a professional AFL player as a young teenager, only to be told by a scout for a professional team that I wasn’t tall enough.
I moved onto wanting to be a doctor, even though I had a weak stomach - my parents bought me a copy of “Gray’s Anatomy” for my 16th birthday - the last one before the dissolution of their marriage.
At one point with the encouragement of the parish priest, I thought about the law and then politics. But university never quite felt right.
I still dream of being a pilot one day, but it’s prohibitively expensive.
The result of all this? A mess of a resume, a substantial sum of HECS debt with no degree, and turning 30 having been unemployed since arriving back in Australia in October 2023 and still searching. For everything.
I’m officially grown up. But what do I want to be?
I turned 30 on March 1st. I thought I’d be married by now, perhaps with children. My dad was my age when I was born, with two kids already. Shortly after my birth, mum and dad bought the house I’ve lived in my whole life, except the two years I was in London. I try my best to not feel down about how far away I am from that kind of stability and direction. I know I have to trust God’s plan for me. That’s always easier said than done when you feel behind even God’s timing.
All in God’s time. It’s repeated over and over again.
I don’t like being angry at God, but why can’t it be my time already? I pray on this, asking for the strength to surrender to His will. It’s a false humility I portray in prayer, especially in my weakest moments. This Lent I’ve struggled to pray. I’ve struggled with humility even more. I never imagined this being my life at 30.
Every night I lay in bed with that question in my head: what do I want to be?
I’ve never felt motivated by money. It’s something that probably bothers my family. That said, I’m certainly not happy being poor; it’s stressful to say the least. Money is a way to freedom, to do things. It’s not fun feeling trapped for financial reasons. What makes me more miserable is not the lack of freedom, but the sense of a lack of purpose. No duty. No obligation except to myself. A man doesn’t like to feel useless.
I injured my knee over two years ago now. I kept putting off surgery out of fear, which feels a bit sad. Most of my anxiety comes from my past. I don’t trust easily, so letting a stranger knock me out, cut me open and rearrange things is a big hurdle to cross. Which if you’ve read The Lucky One might be understandable. That can be hard to admit to myself sometimes. It’s particularly frustrating that these fears have meant going nearly four years without a fully functional right knee.
This hesitation extends beyond my knee injury.
I promised my counsellor that I’d go to the Australian Museum in Sydney and tell him about it before our next session, and that was three sessions ago. I keep telling myself that tomorrow will be the day I go, but I find an excuse to put it off for another 24 hours. The thing is, I really want to go. So why do I continue to deny myself that joy? Why do I put things off?
I’ll go to the museum soon.
Tomorrow, maybe.
There’s much in life I’ve put off because I don’t feel ready, or I want to share it with someone I love. At some point you just have to do things because they might bring you joy. That’s why I moved to London in the first place. I was on track for a promotion at work and would likely own a house by now if I never moved abroad. I never cared for any of that even though it made sense because it would’ve been without the person I loved. The rational mind is no match for a yearning heart.
Perhaps I was foolish chasing love. At first, I felt embarrassed to admit my circumstances to people in London. I downplayed the truth, masked it with humour or irony, afraid that being too earnest would make me seem naïve. I know regret is worse than vulnerability, so why do I continue to avoid the truth of what I really want?
If you spend too much time online like me, you become accustomed to the idea that earnestness is “cringe,” especially in a man. This is no way to live life and certainly no way to approach relationships. I think about how our world has begun to reward detachment while punishing sincerity. It makes it harder to be open, to be vulnerable, to express faith or longing or hope without a protective layer of cynicism. I worry about what that means for the next generation.
That bravery that brought me to London feels absent from my life presently. I know I don’t miss the person but I do miss loving someone so deeply that I’d abandon everything to be by their side. It was reckless. Beautifully so. It’s an unfulfilled desperation now. No amount of patiently waiting can cure that.
I’m growing ever restless. As I lay in bed at night the question changes from what do I want to be? to who am I?
I won’t answer that here. I don’t think anyone in my life could give me an answer I’d be satisfied with, which is a lack of humility on my part.
I told myself I’d publish more on Substack this year. I wish to write about happier topics, having covered so many depressing things here already, but my mindset is not exactly conducive to the kind of whimsical joy I wish to impart. I worry I’ve already contributed too much to the multitude of people writing “dear diary” content that I can spare the world anymore of the monotonous, introspective ramblings about details of my life, after this post of course.
I could continue writing about the church and sexual abuse, but that is expectedly draining for me. Though those are the posts that tend to resonate with my audience the most.
I’ve been working on a novel. It’s nowhere close to being ready but I’m quite happy with what I’ve written so far. It occupies much of my writing time and the existential theme I’m going for lets me leave enough of my anxieties on the page without delving too deeply into the world of tiresome autofiction. One day it will be ready to share.
I do love writing. I want to write more. For now, that’s what I want to be: a writer. Please hold me accountable. Nag me for content if you must. I’ll need the push to keep sharing my work.
There’s no neat resolution here. No perfect next step. Just prayer and patience.
But I do know this:
I want to go to the museum.
I want to keep writing.
I want to keep hoping.
Lent, after all, is about hope.
And Easter is coming.
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Please do keep on writing! I very much enjoy reading what you write ! Sending prayers your way