I turned 30 almost two weeks ago.

After much deliberation, I felt the need to speak on what my mother and new fiancee refer to as a “momentous event in my life.”

This is how I look at it:

To me, turning 30 was like sleeping on a beach in the dead of night, when all of a sudden an enormous ship glides by, as though it were being pushed across a blanket of velvet. You did not hear it, did not see it, but it was gargantuan, not to mention right in front of your face.

Don’t ask me what all this allegory means, just go with it.

Now, some people turn 30 and immediately become wildly depressed. These are the people who stay up all night, dreading the ship’s arrival. Then they break out in tears and whine about how they are still single.

Others turn 30 and could not be happier; they are thrilled to be alive with family and friends. These are the people that stay up awaiting the ship with anticipation, and once it arrives, they hop on and party until completely drunk.

Then there are people like me who could care less about the damn ship. We wake up and go back to work, because that’s what we love to do.

I suppose it is now obvious that I really did not care much about turning 30. That might sound harsh when it comes to the opinions of my mother and fiancee, but they threw me a fantastic party anyway. The point is, it just didn’t make much difference to me that I was turning 30. It could have been 35, 22, or anything else.

To put it another way, what excited me most about turning 30 was seeing the balance in my IRAs. For Christ’s sake, the original impetus for writing this article was a site I read that provided people in their 20s with sound financial advice (http://20somethingfinance.com), not some self-serving desire to justify my place in the world at my new age.

Sure I was a bit perturbed about not yet owning my own home, but that thought was quickly squashed by my oft-ignored desire to live somewhere other than Southern California, which is why I chose to wait in the first place. I was also jolted briefly by the thought that I had yet to publish my novel, but that again was quickly squashed by several cocktails and a reaffirmation that even if I never “make it,” I would still write everyday no matter what.

Take my 21st birthday, for example. I don’t recall even being that excited about turning 21, nor did I get crazy or drink until I threw up on that day. I went out and ordered my first legal drink (paid for by friends) and went home to get some sleep before school and a 10-hour shift for work the next day.

I used to be more excited about birthdays, but in the past few years, they feel more like a slow, oncoming rash to me. It’s not about the fact that I am turning a year older, but more about the fact that I do not want attention paid to me for something as trivial as not dying in the suburbs for the past 365 days.

I have also noticed an increasing lack of desire for gifts from others within the past few years. It is almost as if I just want to eat a great meal, drink some great wine and talk to family and friends. Nothing more, nothing less. No big vacations to Vegas or anywhere else, no big presents, no cards, no anything. Like the man said, “I want what I want and I can’t do anything about it.”

I realize I might sound ungrateful in saying some of these things, but let me be clear : It is not that I don’t appreciate attention paid to me, gifts or anything else; I believe that I am simply…growing simpler.

I see other family members and my friends having outings for their birthdays, going on trips, throwing huge, drunken bashes, but all I want to do is have a bit of fun with good food and good people for a couple of hours and then get back to work.

Obviously this must be caused by my growing older, possibly maturing more as time goes by, and definitely becoming more dull. And yet at the same time, I feel as though this is how I have really felt every year since adulthood; I was just too confused or unable to recognize it cogently enough to speak on it. “Wisdom comes with age,” as the saying goes.

Regardless of the reason, I have to say that, at 30, I am happier than I have ever been in my life. I am comfortable in my own skin and with everything I am doing and working towards. I am confident that I will be able to handle (with grace, I hope), anything life has to throw at me from now on, even the unthinkable.

Most importantly, though, is the UNBELIEVABLE fact that I still have all of my hair, because let me tell you, every male on every side of my family was practically bald by the time they were blowing out 25 candles.