Birthday aftermath

Having a week off of work to celebrate your birthday (and your wife’s much more important birthday) is great, however the combination of heavy drinking, junk food, late nights and lie-ins have left my sleep patterns all over the place. Which meant that at two o’clock this morning when I should have been sound asleep preparing for my return to work and the barrage of emails that surely awaited me, I was instead restlessly watching the green LCD glow of my bedside clock count down to my inevitable lethargic wake up call.

But of course, it had all been totally worth it. I had received a plethora of awesome presents, from a selection of DVDs including season one of “Archer” (my new favourite animated sitcom), to the multitude of awesome T-shirts which covered Kick Ass to Kobayshi Porcelain (you know I love an esoteric reference), my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Belt Buckle, a couple of Jasper Fforde books and Mario Kart to the DS. And not to forget my SHIELD travelcard case.

Whilst I would never play favourites with the gifts I received, special mention to the Star Wars Light Sabre wall light…as soon as I move, that’s going up; and the Marvel Encyclopaedia, which may just be the coolest comic related tome ever. I’ve spent the last three days explaining to Jane why it needs to be our coffee table book.

And importantly Jane had a lovely weekend, and liked the Tiffanies earrings I got her (they only cost me a kidney…luckily I still have another one). We saw lots of friends and family and managed to squeeze some chill time in as well. All in all, a pretty awesome couple of days.

Oh and I had just under 250 emails when I got in. Not bad for a week off. 

Making a drama out of a (quarter-life) crisis

So I turn 28 today.

In the past few weeks, in an effort to completely deny the fact that I’m aging, I’ve dyed my hair blonde and have started to listen to my fourteen-year-old niece’s “Swedish House Mafia” album. Objectively, I know these are all tell-tale signs that I’m worried that my youth is slipping through my (incredibly young) fingers, yet I can’t seem to stop myself.

Maybe it’s because I’m such a big kid at heart. Unlike sports, which it seems are activities that it is deemed social acceptable to continue to be obsessed about from birth to death; my interests range from comics to cartoons, neither of which are viewed as particularly “grown up”…outside of the geek community at least.

Or maybe it’s because, in my heart of hearts, my default age is always 23. Not sure why, but I always think of myself as being that age…possibly in large part due to the Blink182 song. But today I’m forced to come to terms with the fact that it’s been five years since I was actually that age. And that’s pretty depressing.

The true measure of my age is that I’m now older than Chandler and Ross were supposed to be in the first series of Friends. God it bums me out. Maybe some people won’t even get that reference anymore.

But before ennui completely sets in, I consider that I do have a lot going for me. I own a house (or at the very least am mortgaged up to my eyeballs in one…but eventually it will be mine), I’ve got awesome friends who’ve always got my back and a loving family. And I’m married to a wonderful woman who not only puts up with all my geeky foibles but actively encourages them. I’m pretty good at my job and whilst I’ve yet to see anything I’ve written published or produced (barring that text in The Metro), I’ve got a good feeling that I’ll get there. I mean ultimately, 28 isn’t that bad, is it? It’s way better than 29, or, god forbid, 30.

So maybe there’s not any reason to get depressed. With age comes experience, and with experience comes knowledge. And if knowledge is power then getting older just makes you more powerful (mentally at least, physically you’re screwed). People always say that forty is the new thirty and thirty is the new twenty, don’t’ they? And with medical science continuing to progress, I’ve still got miles to go (barring incident). On that note, the reference in the title of this post was originally going to be third-life crisis, but I thought that 84 might be selling myself too short. I’m sure with advancements in cloning technology and the future production of robot bodies, 112 isn’t too unrealistic.

So thinking about it, I’m actually pretty cool with turning 28. I hear it’s the new 23.