The Young Adult Neurotic
Much has always been made in this country of one's thirtieth birthday. It used to be said that if a man had not found a proper niche in society by age thirty he was likely to be a ne'er-do-well and a bounder, and that if a woman had not found a husband by that time she was doomed to spinsterhood in the most chilling, Agnes Moorehead sort of way. Now, it seems, such opinions are not so widely aired. Neurotic's know, however, that people secretly still believe them to be true.

This societal duplicity makes things confusing for young adults. Should they seek independence, they wonder, which is held before them as the mighty beacon of happiness? Or should they seek responsibility, which stands as the only road to fulfillment? By age thirty, most neurotics can be spotted with one foot on the beacon and one on the road. This is not only uncomfortable and ungainly, but it also casts a scary shadow.

Such is the confusion these days that only three things can be said to be completely true regarding the thirtieth birthday.

1. If you haven't got things figured out by now, you never will. You once thought that getting your driver's license would reveal the key to life. Then you thought that going away to school or living out on your own and having your own plants to water would solve things. By age thirty you can see the answers do not come quite so easily. If you still can't open a bag of potato chips without using your teeth, how are you going to pick apart the subtleties of the cosmos?

2. People who are thirty act as if they are eighteen or forty-six, but they never act as if they are thirty. There is no such thing as acting as if you are thirty.

3. What you knew at age six is much more important than anything you have learned since. You knew pain, fear, anger, envy, love, food, and sleep when you were six. On the other hand, when is the last time you heard someone mention the Huguenots or Planck's constant except in a mildly humorous light? When were you last asked to parse a sentence?

Fortunately, most young adults - particularly those who are just past thirty - begin to try to bury their anxieties behind a facade of normality. They like to be observed as having things well in hand, and they are much more likely to talk calmly about firewood or traffic conditions than they are to rant on and on about someone at work who keeps stealing paper clips. It is not important that the content of tjose quiet chats about firewood and traffic is completly neurotic. What is important is that the tone of voice has softened and outwardly neurotic buzzwords such as humungous and gross and teeny-weeny have been dropped. Life becomes a matter of reserve and grim acceptance, except among the very closest of friends.

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