Turning 30

29 was the age I always dreamed of being. I was 19, at a concert, standing behind a group of guys in their 40s with beers in their hands talking about how 29 was when it all came together for them, when they had figured out what they wanted in life, but hadn´t made so many commitments that they felt old. What they said stayed with me over the next decade, a string tied around my fnger, reminding me to make 29 an epic year. Or, at the very least, to make it a year I could wax nostalgic about during my eventual midlife crisis.

And I guess I´ve succeeded at that. I won´t ever flip out and buy a sports car (unless it´s a fully restored early 90s Bright Calypso Green Metallic Ford Probe with a completely rebuilt 4-cylinder engine), but I´m sure the day will come when I´ll look at a mortgage payment or a tuition bill and dream of the days we spent in Kathmandu and Istanbul, Zanzibar and Detroit.

I can´t deny that things have changed for me. Nowadays, instead of smoking pot, I get stoned staring at the iTunes Visualizer. When my head gets turned by a woman walking down the street, she inevitably has a kid trailing behind her. I worry that my favorite musicians will have strokes instead of overdoses.

This trip has made it clear that I´ve reached the age where life changes in a year. I was 25 the last time I took off to travel the world, alone. And when I returned, it seemed that most people´s lives were the same way they had been the year before. But now, in the 10 months since we got on that plane in San Francisco, I feel like everyone I know has up and moved on to something bigger, more ambitions, more grown-up. Z finished his PhD and became a professor, B conceived and became a father, C had a baby and got married. E became a rockstar in the world of social entrepreneurship, K (my ex) is in law school and will get married in a week, J started a new job and will probably be back in China any day now, C and A started business school, A moved in with her boyfriend, K bought a farm, and L left Nepal, landed in DC to be with S and changed careers. Nothing, or no one, it seems, is the same as when I left. We are growing up. We are doing amazing things. We are growing old.

Me, I´m unemployed, unmarried, unpregnant, a renter upon my return. I don´t have it all figured out. But, I have to admit, I kinda like it, being 30 and on the road. It´s hard to feel too old when you sleep in a new bed every day. And if you need to make peace with a change, to accept the fact that `old` happens, this, a city that in so many ways has resisted change, is a good place to do it. Nowhere makes old look beautiful the way that Detroit does. You drive down the street in a `53 Olds convertible and watch the pant peel off the Art Deco buildings and the balconies crumble away from the colonial walls. You let yourself believe that a little decay isn´t so bad.

Oh, and I should say, the other reason it´s good to turn 30 in Detroit is that everyone here is hairy. Since I´ve now reached the point where hair doesn´t grow in the places where I want and does in the places that I don´t (some might say I reached that point when I was 20, but don´t listen to them), it´s hard to explain how good it feels to be surrounded by men with hairy guts falling over their belts, women with Kahlo moustaches, boys with tufts poking through the buttons of their guyaberas, girls wearing tube tops that show off the treasure trail leading down from their bellybuttons. And the backs. Oh, the hairy hairy backs. In a place where any temperature over 70 degrees is justification for a guy to walk around topless, I just want to rip off my shirt and scream ¨Hombres, Mujeres (because, you know, a surprising number of people in Detroit speak Spanish), I am part of your hirsute brotherhood! Let us celebrate the rivers of hair cascading over our bodies and band together to destroy all waxing equipment and pictures of young hairless Abercrombie models!

Fortunately, I have not been drunk enough to do this yet. Also, there is no Abercrombie in Detroit. It´s just as well, for I suppose such antics are not appropriate for a man of my age. And so, instead, tonight we´ll eat gazpacho and ceviche, drink wine and rum, walk through the dark streets. And believe it when we say that 29 was great, and 30 will somehow, unexpectedly, unbelievably, be better.

--rahul

ps. I just opened up my inbox to a whole lot of email birthday love. To everyone who sent one out, thank you, thank you, thank you. I wish you were here in Detroit right now.