I am 33 years old. I actually stumbled over that recently when someone else told me that they were 33. Instead of saying that I was the same age, I said that we were around the same age. I said this because my mind blanked and I honestly couldn't remember, all of the sudden, if I was 31 or 33. The last few years of my life have been more than a little chaotic and even somewhat traumatic. Recently, I have begun to come out of the chaos and am in the infantile steps of reconnecting with and also reinventing myself. Somewhere in that process I lost my grip on just how many years I'd been at this so far. It's 33. I am 33. That dream, you remember --33.
Somewhere along the way I got it in my head that 33 was some kind of "too late for everything: number. My 20s are over. My college degree is complete, but a little on the unpractical side. I'm married and not working with no car of my own. I've missed opportunities, walked away from chances, let things pass me by, and here I am at 33 stuck with what have and will have that for the rest of my life. That is, of course, nonsense, but it's only about two minutes ago that I realized that. Until that moment, my thought process was inverted and turned upon the stark reality that I am not "young" any more.
The truth of the matter is, though, that I am not old, either. Thirty-three is not an unreasonable age to make things start happening. It's not an unreasonable age to find who you are and run with your talents. I realized, as I reshelved the Henson biography I'd started in dead tree format while waiting for my Kindle to charge so I could read it more comfortably, that 33 is actually a pretty good place to start. It's old enough, I realized, to really start to have a good grasp on yourself as a person. I realized that maybe a good sturdy sense of self is actually pretty hard to come by any time before thrity-something. Sure, I've missed opportunities and let potentially awesome things slip through my fingers, but in getting to this point I have learned a lot about myself. I have no idea what to do with what I have learned or how I got here, but I realize that it's not unreasonable to just be getting started, even if you thought you were well rolling a long time ago. There's no shame in picking yourself up after a mere 30 years on the planet and finally setting your heels to Doing Something. It's not unreasonable that it might take 30 years to even begin to get to that point. Because life is a strange strange bird and truly living isn't, oddly enough, just something that comes naturally. Rolling over as "done" or "too late" at 33 is silly. All these podcasts I listen to and books I read about successful entertainers people are starting to sink in. Life doesn't begin at 21. You don't get your big idea while you're still trying to become a person. And becoming a person never really stops. Thirty-three, though, is a good point to look back, make sense of it, and do something with all that time. It's not time wasted, it's not opportunities lost, it's where you learned how to be you. If you knew what was important to you and who were before then, well, that's awesome for you, but the shocking fact of the matter is that isn't the rule, it's the exception.
It's not too late. In fact, because it's now and no other time, it's just right. Now is always just right, no matter when it is. Now is happening at 33? Great! I'm glad it's happening, now go get it.
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