Thirty-Five Years Young or Just Immature?

I turned thirty-five on Friday. Thirty-five! I know that thirty-five isn't old, but I just can't believe that it's been seventeen years since I was eighteen. I remember turning eighteen years old on the first day of classes my freshman year at Penn State. When I think back, it really doesn't seem all that long ago. I have lived almost that same complement of years again since that time. It just doesn't seem possible. Where have the years gone?

I remember being in high school and my parents and other adults used to tell me not to wish the years away because as you get older, they just tend to fly by at an unbelievable rate. It's not that I didn't believe them, but I just couldn't appreciate what they were talking about as I hadn't experienced it. I was young and had my whole life ahead of me. Now I realize that they were 100% correct. The older that I get, the faster that the time seems to slip away from me. One of my theories for this uneven passage of time is that when you're in elementary and high school, you are always excited for that next birthday or being old enough to drive, etc. Because you are waiting and hoping for time to pass quickly, it seems to go more slowly. Plus, you have Christmas vacation and the summer off from school along with other breaks that act as natural time dividers. This segmenting of your life makes things seem to progress more slowly. Even in college, you have Christmas break, Spring Break, and summer break to mark natural transitional periods. Once you get out into the working world, your daily life is pretty much the same routine day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year. Because there is very little change, there is nothing to act as a transition point in your life. This causes time to just zip by alarmingly fast. Before you know it, a few years have passed and you think - wow, what happened to the last three years?

Don't get me wrong - being thirty-five doesn't bother me, I just can't believe that's how old that I am. I don't feel thirty-five (except for some mornings when I roll out of bed after a tough workout), and I definitely don't act thirty-five, but I guess that immaturity has no effect on your actual age.

I guess the one thing that does bother me is that there is so much that I want to do and experience in life, and I am starting to realize that I had better start doing it; and soon. That is one of the reasons that I took my Dad to Canada on that train trip earlier this year. It's something that I've been wanting to do for several years and I knew that I just needed to make it happen before yet another year slipped away. I have been telling my wife that we need to start taking some trips aside from going to Disney or the beach. I want to see Ireland, Scotland, Italy, and I want to go to South Africa and get lowered down in a cage in the midst of Great White Sharks. The longer that we wait to do the things that we really want to in life, the less likely that we are to ever do them. Getting older makes me realize that life is a finite thing and no one knows when it will come to an abrupt end. I don't want to leave this world with any regrets. I don't fear death at all, but I do fear not living life to its fullest.

I hope that this entry doesn't sound depressing; it wasn't meant to at all. I don't feel depressed as I write it. I just feel more motivated to experience and appreciate life. I think that is a good thing.