I have a vague (and likely mostly an imaginary) memory of turning 10 in 1976, thinking how it was cool my age was in double-digits and vaguely wondering what it would be like to be 20 or 30, figuring out that when I turned 40, it would be the next century.
I definitely remember turning 20 in particular because of the significance of the other ages around twenty. Turning 18 meant I was “an adult,” and I could vote (Mondale, btw). Up until the feds required all states to set the drinking age at 21 in 1984, it was 19 in Iowa. Thankfully, people like me who turned 19 by 1987 when the change would go into effect were grandfathered in, meaning I could legally get a beer in 1985. So that made 19 a memorable birthday. Turning 20 was big just because you’re getting out of the teenage numbers. Turning 21 mattered because that is the age where you can do pretty much anything– other than collect social security and medicare, I suppose.
Twenty-two? I remember thinking that was such an irrelevant age after the three previous years.
Like most people I suppose, a lot happened in my 20s, and when I turned 30, I was finishing my PhD at BGSU (after having finished my MFA at VCU and after living and working in Richmond for five years), married to Annette, and we were on our way to Ashland, Oregon because I landed a tenure-track job at what was Southern Oregon State College but became Southern Oregon University.. It was an interesting place to start my career, it was a great place to have our son, and it’s been a great place to revisit.
By the time I was 40, I was tenured and on my way to full professor at EMU, I had been blogging for a few years, and boy-howdy, I sure used to write here a lot more here before Facebook and Twitter. There’s a recap of a birthday party I threw for myself that I only vaguely remember (but it sounds like it was a good one);a “part two” of my birthday recapping a dinner I do remember at Frontera Grill in Chicago with Bill HD and Steve Benninghoff (we were there for the 4Cs); and part three of my birthday, still in Chicago and hanging out with my friends from the old days, Bruce and Troy and Lisa. I didn’t realize I had embraced the birthmonth concept that long ago.
By the time I turned 50 (and wrote this post), a lot of what I used to write here had shifted over to Facebook, Twitter, etc. My blogging– everyone’s blogging– slowed down or disappeared entirely. In a lot of ways, 2016 was a better time. I was at what was/will be the height of my academic success with all the MOOC stuff (ah, remember MOOCs?), and life was generally good. Plus 2016 was before shit like Trump 1, Covid, Biden’s effort at a second term, Trump 2, etc., etc.
A lot of my post here a decade ago dwelled on death, all stuff that seems more relevant now ten years later. Here’s the end of that post:
On the up-side: I’m in a pretty good spot in my life right now, certainly better than I was for a lot of my 20s. I’m still very happily married to Annette and I’m incredibly proud of my son. I’m not the healthiest 50 year old within a 10 mile radius, I’m not the unhealthiest 50 year old, so I’ll take it. I’m quite happy with my work, and, without blowing myself up too much about it all, I feel like my career as an academic has been reasonably successful, too. I often return to something my colleague and friend Derek Mueller said off-hand one day (I’m not even sure how much he remembers this), which is that academic fame is an oxymoron, and I’m not (and will not likely become) a “big name” in my field. But I’m happy with where I’m at. We talk about moving all the time, but I’m still pretty happy with our house and neighborhood and how we’re living. We have enough money to pretty much do what we want (not that we want to do anything terribly extravagant), which is of course a huge difference between now and when I was 20-something or 30-something.
So yeah, it doesn’t bother me. Now it’s just a question of worrying about really getting old when I turn 60.
Most of this is still true, though with a few interesting differences. I’m still proud of my son and he is now a grown-ass man with a PhD from Yale and starting a new post-doc gig. Thanks to Zepbound, I’m around 50 pounds lighter and more healthy than I was 10 years ago. I’m too close to retirement to care about my place in the field anymore, and we did move into a new house almost two years ago. So yeah, life is good.