For several reasons, 34 was bound to be a unique age. In the greater conversation, it’s the final moment where you could make an argument that you’re maybe in the early 30s. At a time where you’re moving away from youth and into pivotal adult years, any efforts to seem youthful are irresistible. There’s something relieving about saying, “I’m in my EARLY 30s.” Something about “Mid-30s” has a different ring to it. There’s the suggestion that you’re entering the middle chapter of the decade which, in any other generation, would be the material for inspirational tales of enlightenment.
The story is a little different in the 2020s. The natural escalation was offset by a variety of hurdles, most notably a pandemic. While I’m thankful that I wasn’t younger and suffered my formative years under this scrutiny, there’s still the reality that assessing my early 30s comes with a certain level of disappointment and missteps. Even as I write this, modern political discourse is caught up with a doom and gloom regularity that makes me wonder how the back half will be. As it stands, I’m very aware of age in that I’ll have to wait until I’m 39 to potentially have a campaign year that restores my confidence in the electoral process. The feeling of waiting for change is evident in that very obvious way.
Nobody wants to look at their lives and think that they wasted a year. Given that I treat every year like a new chapter of my life, I use this eulogy as a chance to reflect on the year that was. The past few have been easy to assess because they were working towards a clear goal. I earned a bachelor’s degree from Cal State Long Beach. To have even attended my dream school is such a thrilling experience. To have exited with a GPA above 3.5 only proves my capability to be a focused student. In that time, I also published one novel, one anthology, and several short stories and articles. I haven’t been unproductive.
And yet, I have to wonder what like has been like at 34. It was the first moment in my life that I realized I had achieved my limits with school. There was no longer the shame of not completing goals. I needed to start a new chapter, and… I wasn’t entirely sure what that goal would actually look like. As a writer, the answer seems on paper obvious. I would be a writer. Ideally, I’d get swooped up by a company needing a few pieces written for them and get an occasional paycheck. With over 17 years of experience writing for the internet, it wasn’t like I was lacking that capability.
And yet, I think a lot of 34 has been attempting to overcome a certain queasiness over the next chapter. As time went on, I considered other prosaic alternatives. I considered transcriptionist until I realized most beginner work wasn’t available in California. I have moved onto considering copy editing but feel like I need to better prepare my skills to have any shot of that. As a result, I’m maybe ashamed to admit that after months of research… I still don’t have anything to show for my progress.
It's easy to rail on me for not having a conventional job. As a writer, there’s always been the notion that my work isn’t real work. I’m not making regular pay nor is it maybe servicing the larger industry. While I’ve scrapped together change here or there, efforts to search for writing work while being used to disrespect is difficult. In fairness, the Creative Writing degree was for nobody but myself. I never saw school as a place to dance monkey. To me, it was a place to remember why I loved writing to begin with. As much as I’d love to share it with other people, I’m stuck at an impasse on whether I want to keep struggling to find that miracle job by putting in practice every day, or fall into the cliché writer game where it’s seen as a side hustle while I get a familiar 9 to 5.
Maybe one of the things about being in my 30s is that light going out a little bit that creativity can suffice the whole self. While I’m sure I could quit a million jobs and not care, I need writing to have a purpose to live. The dream scenario is conjoining them so that I could get paid for my craft. Without it, my life would be like sewage in a clogged pipe. Everything needs to get out so that things can get back to normal. I recognize how miserable I am when I don’t write it out. Even capturing a moment feels important just to potentially bring me happiness years down the line. As dumb as it sounds, I look at stuff I wrote 10 years ago and am amused at the arrogant jerk who compiled a very sarcastic joke.
At the same time, I need to find stability. As crass and capitalist as it is to say it, a job (for now) gives me a sense of direction. It allows me to feel like I’m contributing to my own future. Maybe it could help me afford to submit work to pricier publications and take risks that a shoestring budget won’t allow. I also want to start “upgrading” my life in very banal ways. I want a new car. I want to travel and leave Southern California for a few days. There is a need to get out of the rut of city life and feel inspired by things just out of view.
I’ve felt that way in the past year no matter where I’ve gone. There is something to moving past the skyscrapers and smog to places like Big Bear. Stopping to talk to residents of a mountain community make you realize how diverse the world is. It removes the hivemind of internet culture and makes you recognize the humanity that’s not on Twitter. As it stands, one of my fondest memories of being 34 was being in Big Bear and talking to a blacksmith who organically brought up discussion on being a teacher closer to where we lived. He wrote for the local newspaper and attended my school’s rival. All these hours and altitude later only to realize how small the world is. He was a great man working at a small exhibit featuring many exhibits for early life in Big Bear including school rooms and stores.
To me, that’s another thing that’s become more savored over the past year. I have had the pleasure of observing worlds beyond my own. In a way, it felt like more of a tease but beyond Big Bear, I visited Las Vegas for the first time in 22 years. I got to visit Alien Beef Jerky and enjoy the world of tourist traps in the middle of nowhere. While I’m nowhere near attracted to the casino life, it was amusing to think of an elevator as the gateway to seeing random people from around the world all coming to the same city for escapism. In a lot of ways, Vegas felt smaller now that I’m older. The M&M Store in particular left me disillusioned.
I’ve returned to Fingerprints Records for the first time in almost 15 years. While they had moved so the memory was a little warped, I loved the feeling of walking through the rows and rows of CDs and vinyl while The Streets played and the employees had that Gen-Z High Fidelity (2000) attitude that I sorely miss. It was wonderful to be reminded of what it felt like to grow up in Long Beach. While I haven’t taken a thorough venture around downtown in several years, I was reminded of how much culture and life there is to be proud of. I commemorate that trip with a copy of Christine and the Queens’ “Paranoia, Angels, True Love” that now sits proudly on my shelf.
I’ve gone to more baseball games than I had since I was in middle school. I saw The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim play The Oakland Athletics while a counter-protest of A’s fans were chanting “Sell the team!” a dozen rows behind me. I’ve watched Big West sports across the board, such as CSULB’s men’s volleyball sold-out win against UCLA for the only time that season. I’ve been to several baseball double-headers which… are fun, but also do a number on your body sitting that many hours. I’ve been to WNBA games where I met Sparky and had my nieces appear on the jumbotron.
There are these small moments you remember that in any grander text wouldn’t even be footnotes. I feel grateful to have seen A Strange Loop on stage if just because I worry it won’t be touring beyond this initial run. To me the story of Usher trying to understand his purpose in the larger discourse felt relevant to me less because of the specifics and more that we’re both young and confused. I’m closer to the age of creator Michael R. Jackson, so I relate to his metatextual conversation of “am I smart or full of myself?” The only difference is he made a genuinely profound piece of art that I wish had a pro-shot for me to watch every few months.
For as much as the online discourse has created the sense of unease, I am able to step away and appreciate the world around me. For as much as the 2024 presidential election fills me with a special kind of dread that has defined a lot of the year, I am doing my best to recognize what’s great about being alive. I still have family. I still have my talents. I still have friends. To me, I think so long as I tend to those, I will have some fulfillment with life.
But I see my desire to travel just in how far I’ve gone this year. I’ve also had two separate groups of friends come from France and England respectively that have helped me appreciate the mundanity of this country. I have seen friends that I hadn’t seen in five years who talked openly about loving this country and how there’s so much about it that they don’t know. I still feel that way watching Huell Howser reruns or episodes of Lost L.A. on PBS. To me, there’s so much old and new that is deserving of exploring. I just need to find the keys.
So yes, there is the overarching reality that I come to this eulogy with a sense of anticlimax. There isn’t much on a financial level to show for myself. Even then, I’ve found myself experiencing a sense of joy that hasn’t really been in me in almost seven years when I had hopes for making the end of my 20s more meaningful. There is a sense of optimism that currently runs through me that I don’t think was there a few years ago. I’m grateful to have it. The trick now is to build upon it by finding out what my life is missing and try to get it.
My ultimate goal more than anything is to have that stability by the time I complete the next orbit around the sun. To me, I need to start investing in whatever the next chapter will be. I am not proud of the past year being less catapulted, but there isn’t a lack of things to be proud of. I have a novel that will hopefully be out by then. I am hoping to do so much that starts the back half of my 30s on a better note than the first. Sure, it partially depends on how this election turns out, but I can’t wait for them to elect someone who gives me hope. I guess I have to find my own pathway there.
I’ll miss my early 30s because they were so formative. They allowed me to explore life in such painfully vulnerable ways. It took a lot of self-help to get there, but I think I’m more capable of understanding who I want to be and where I want to go. The only question is how I want to acquire some gas money to do it.
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