I turn thirty tomorrow, and it has somehow crept up on me more than what I thought it would.

To tell the truth, by now I am totally over being thirty – though I still insist on talking/writing about it as though it were something that I’m not ready for.
But the fact is that it is not likely to change my perception of myself or of the world much.

I find that on ‘big’ birthdays I tend to spend more time looking back than forward. The last ‘big’ birthday I had was turning 20.
This is before Anita and I were a couple, during a very important time for me – my first year at UP (second year out of school).
It was the year I joined Radio Tuks, met Anita and made a few lifelong friends and enemies.

Looking through some albums in the study at home I found these photos of myself (with university types) from the spring (September/August) of 1997 – early twenties.

early twenties

I have a vivid memory of writing some sort of note to myself on my 20th birthday about how an entire decade had past (teens) and how little I had changed.
In hindsight that probably wasn’t true, but today I feel like writing that same note to myself again. So here it is.

A decade has passed and so little has changed.

I see myself and I don’t – that has stayed the same.