Dirty Thirty

My 30th birthday is knocking at my door. It's right around the corner and about to bite me on my ass.

Monday I'll be 30, launching myself into my third decade as a human being on this planet. Perhaps for a lack of anything else to do and a little bit of time on my hands, I've decided I should dedicate a blog entry to the subject. It is, after all, a big deal, isn't it? Eh, I think not. It's just another day, the sun will rise and it will probably be chilly, a breeze might hang off the skeletal branches on the tree above our house, but it will set, and time will go on, and the day will pass and another will come. I'm not the only one with a birthday, and if anything, I should be celebrating my parents on that day.

I'm still here, which is nice. I think, all in all, I'm doing quite well. I feel I've been blessed so far, with family and friends and the things I love all gathered in heaps around me. I lucked out.

I'm back living in Sacramento, not downtown but in east Sac, where the trees are much prettier this time of year and you don't so often see derelicts rummaging through your garbage bins or hear the 2am bar crowd stumbling home drunk in the moonlight. Nothing against derelicts. I have a job and I'm making money. I'm keeping on top of my bills, not just barely but kinda almost.. My lifestyle is simple though, and I don't find myself wanting much, at least not in the material sense. I dream of travel but I'll always dream of that. Anyway, it's nice to dream of something.

Next year I'm planning on moving abroad again. I'll be honest and admit that I don't know where I'll end up or what I'll be doing, but I know one thing - I'll be gone. Chances are, I won't be going alone. I've found someone who also dreams, and, low and behold, dreams of very similar things. He's open to embracing mine and merging his to make an ours. Sweet! And just how long have I been looking for this??

Berlin is in the race, natürlich, but so is teaching English in Asia. Tawain sounds promising, as does Vietnam. For many of those jobs, only a Bachelor's degree is required, and often times, a salary accompanies room and board and sometimes a round trip flight.

Really, what else am I doing? Our economy is in the shitter; California's unemployment rate is nearing 20%, and I graduated college 6 years ago and work at a restaurant. It's not like I'm doing a whole hell of a lot here - really, the only thing keeping me in the area is my family. If I had a partner to run away to Europe or Asia for a couple of years, living the expat "poor but sexy" lifestyle, I'd be stoked as a mother trucker. Looks like this dream is on the verge of becoming a reality.

In 1544, a Portuguese ship sighted the main island of Taiwan and named it Ilha Formosa, or "Beautiful Island." Don't just take their word for it. See for yourself.









A change of scenery is always good, as is a new perspective. It scares me a little to think of going somewhere as far and as foreign as this little heavily colonized, tropical (yes, tropical!) economic superpower of an island off the southeast coast of China, but a little fear is good. Manageable, too, especially if I don't go alone.

So I'll be thirty on Monday and it should be good. Life, so far, has been good. The past is rosy and the future is bright. I've got my dreams, I've got my plans, I've really got nothing to complain about; only, perhaps, too few stamps on my passport.