So we'll go no more a -roving?

So I've been worrying about it for a while, but now it's really here: my last day of 29; tomorrow I will be thirty years old and surely an adult by now.  As anyone who has listened to me winge lately will know, I've been a little disheartened that I haven't achieved more by 30.  However, I have my health, a good job, and a Marsh who loves me, plus the wisdom to know I should be thankful for them.


When I was 19 and staring down the barrel at 20, I happened to be reading The Rachel Papers by Martin Amis.  I found that I was the same age as the protagonist Charles Highway; I thought it would be fun to finish reading it on the eve of my 20th birthday, the same day as he finishes his narrative.  I was looking forward to going to Cambridge, to the gorgeous women I was sure to meet there (and I did) and to dedicate three years to drinking tea and reading books.  There was plenty of Highway-style bravado in those years, and pretty ladies, but sometimes my twenties bore a closer resemblance to Money than The Rachel Papers.  They weren't really weren't the playground I hoped they would be, often there were more dark days than sunny ones, so I suppose I should be glad to see that chapter close.


I hadn't thought about my timely reading of The Rachel Papers in years, in truth I only thought about it this afternoon, the memory triggered by another literary link.  I remembered how serendipitous I felt it was that I was reading the thoughts Charles was having the night before his twentieth birthday, on the night before mine.  I remembered all this because I was thinking about Byron.  Like many people I've foppishly thought myself a bit Byron-esque at times, usually with no real justification.  But I was once young and revolutionary, I still live according to the will of my heart, I'm driven by passion, and of course I have roved long into the moonlight.  Byron wrote that poem when he was 29.  I've wondered this week if he was feeling the same insecurities as me, wondering if the glory years were behind even though everyone told him the best was yet to come?

   So we'll go no more a-roving
      So late into the night,
   Though the heart be still as loving,
      And the moon be still as bright.

   For the sword outwears its sheath,
      And the soul wears out the breast,
   And the heart must pause to breathe,
      And Love itself have rest.

   Though the night was made for loving,
      And the day returns too soon,
   Yet we'll go no more a-roving
      By the light of the moon.

Feb. 28, 1817.

Byron didn't stop roving or loving at 30; I don't intend to either.  I will take this transition as an opportunity to slow down in certain areas.  I'm going to try and sleep more, drink less, and maybe try eating fruit more often, but I'm not ready to give up on passion and excitement, I'm not ready to give up on fun, and I don't intend to be buying elasticated waisted trousers anytime soon.  Every person I've moaned at has told me that your thirties are a fantastic time, there was one exception- he clasped me to his chest and said 'oh, it was horrible! horrible!'  Their collective wisdom assures me that I will have grown into myself, that I will have more realistic expectations of myself and others, and most deliciously: I will begin not to give a damn about what others think- these I all look forward to.


 P.S. There's an little immature joke in the second stanza if you know the Latin word for scabbard or sheath, being nearly thirty and all, I wouldn't find that kind of thing funny.