On Turning 30

So my 30th birthday was about three weeks ago.  It's an event that has been the source of many anxieties for me the last few months.  Obviously, this birthday is some sort of a milestone...I'm just not sure if that's a good or a bad thing.  There were several goals that I had set to accomplish by the time I turned 30.  I was successful on some fronts and failed on a few others, but that's the way it goes.

I'll get to those two topics later on here, but I suppose now is a good time to give the central details.  My birthday was the day after Christmas (which sucks in it's own right but bears little on this narrative), and within 72 hours I had made several big decisions.  I quit my job and decided that I'm moving to Denver by the end of the month.  

So I wrote the intro about a week ago, so I guess it's time to finish the rest.  Sorry, I've spent the past week packing up all my belongings for a cross-country move.  At this current moment, I'm in Champaign-Urbana, IL visiting my sister and nephews.  Then it's onto Chicago tomorrow.  I'll be in Denver by this time tomorrow night.  I suppose you all might like to now the chain of events that brought me to this present scenario.  Then again, maybe you don't.

Leaving Lexington wasn't too hard of a decision.  Sure there's family and some great friends that I'm leaving behind, but it was time for a change of address.  I grew up in Lexington and to be honest, I never expected to live there as long as I did.  And besides, there really wasn't a whole lot keeping me there.  It's not like I had some great love keeping there or anything.  Maybe there could've been one, but that never seemed to pan out.  "You got indecision, and indecision is my enemy."

But enough about me and my sub-par love life...or my obscure music references.  There are other reasons for this change.  For example, my love-hate relationship with my old job might have influenced things a bit.  For the past five and a half years, I waited tables at one of the better restaurants in town.  The first five years were good, but the last six months...well not so much.

To make a long story somewhat short, there was a partial change in management.  And that's about the time my schedule took a downturn.  An even better way to put it is that I started getting fucked over on my shifts.  For those unfamiliar with the restaurant industry, lunch shifts are the worst.  There's no money to be made and checks are significantly lower.  Well, I went from having good night shifts to a schedule that was 75% lunch shifts. 

After going to several levels of management with my concerns over my schedule, I realized that they didn't really care and nothing was going to be done about my shitty schedule.  Obviously all the years of employment there didn't mean much.  So I quit.  It was the best decision I've made in recent years. 

The decision to move to Denver was probably the easiest factor in this whole mess.  I've planned on relocating there ever since my plans to move abroad and teach English fell through.  There's really not much to explain: Denver is a beautiful city and I have several old friends that live there.  It's also one of the healthiest cities in the US, which almost forces me to get in shape.  I also won't have a vehicle, so that will also help in that arena.  My goal is to lose 20-25 lbs. by summer.

However, it was my 30th birthday that really was the final component to this exodus.  Actually, catalyst is probably a better word.  I hadn't met many of my own expectations and goals that I had set, and I really didn't see that changing if I was still in Kentucky.  Familiarity leads to you falling into repeating patterns of life.  It was fun for a while, but at some point you need to grow up and be an adult.  I don't know if that will ever happen for me, but you gotta try.  By this time tomorrow, I will have begun writing the next chapter of my life.