Over The Hill or Just warming up?

[Hector]

After I joined this site, admittedly out of a curious sense of adventure, I started reminiscing about the fear I had of reaching the big three oh during my twenties. In my 29th year, I lost count of the number of nights where I would lie awake worrying about my hair spontaneously turning grey and my testicles shrivelling to the size of peanuts on my birthday.
Of course I was worrying about nothing and I was pleasantly surprised to notice that I was still operating as I had done the day before and was suffering from no adverse affects of stepping over the other side of the hill.
Now in my second year of being a dirty thirty I find that, far from it being a disadvantage, being a thirty is in fact a joyous experience that has allowed me to see life from a perspective that is not pre-concerned with appearing "with-it" or keeping up with the latest word on the street. I'm in a place where I'm comfortable with who iam and what I know, taking solace in the fact that I have experienced many life-enriching events, and can now look upon those cut-and-thrusting twentiers who think they're the best thing to happen to the planet since oxygen as sweet little things who live in a ego stroking bubble. Reaching thirty allowed me to realise that I didn't know as much as I thought I did and that the world did not, as I had previously suspected, conform to my worldly-view. Realising this was a liberating experience and one that I'm thankfull for passing through.
I have developed an interest in things which previously I would have thought unworthy of investigation, e.g. Real Ale. This has perhaps been my favourite discovery as I had never realised that beer comes with so many flavours and aroma's. Since this revelation my hard gathered research has found that the trendiest places serve the worst beer in preference to Carling and Fosters which I now find as difficult to swallow as a cap full of listerine. Despite my waist line expanding during the compilation of this valuable research I'm yet to be convinced that those bottles of Gobblers Knob have anything to do with it.
The young twenty something who works in the office next door to me is now a constant source of irritation to me as her constant giggling when recalling the events of the previous evening/weekend makes my toes curl as I resist the urge to tell her that she isn't the first person to ever do what she got up to and that in my day it was much funnier and original - something which the thirty-something's of my era no doubt found annoying about me. Perhaps most annoyingly of all, when I don't share in the hilarity of the situation and merely hint that I may have done something similar and ultimately more amusing I'm met with a patronising tone which doubts that I understand the funniness of the situation and suggests that my recollections are somewhat confused.
I digress slightly but by reflecting upon my own ageing process and the experience I have gained during my post teen years I see now that our youth obsessed societies notions of those over thirty being past it and ready for the scrap heap is extremely premature. I seem to be progressing at a far quicker pace now than at any other time in my life and have no intention of slowing down for at least the next 30 orbits of the Sun all the while gaining more and more insight and knowledge and being able to laugh heartily at the younger generations' inferiority complex.