Not Very Mature For Your Age

Another year bites the dust. I can say with no reservations that this has been the best year of my life so far. My marriage is still going strong in its awesomeness. Two of my lovely nieces married wonderful men. I made a lot of new friends (yeah social networking rocks!). I turned the corner of a life long pursuit and became a writer (not a professional one, but I wrote everyday and produced over 200,000 words. I will keep plugging along on the professional part).

I have the utmost confidence that I am a year older but am no more mature than I ever was (I am sure that friends and family will agree to this statement). It is a little funny to me that I was always that kid adults said, "He is very mature for his age". I must have decided that was a bad thing and made a concerted effort to stop.

I am mature where it counts, everywhere else not a damn chance. It's an over- rated quality anyway. Name one professional comedian that we liked more after they became mature and went for those grown-up roles. Sure a few of them got lucky, yeah I am talking to you Robin Williams, and produced a few winners but most of them just stunk it up.

One of my favorite movies of all time Shaun of the Dead lacks all sense of maturity. They threw LPs at a zombie, I think I snorted my soft drink through my nose during that scene. I think that Christopher Moore is one of the best writers in the business. He has a scene in Fluke that involves people getting drenched by whale sperm, I think that my wife sent me to the other room after I read that because the bed was shaking for all the wrong reasons. I couldn't stop laughing.

If you consider yourself a grown-up and mature I have nothing against you. Do what works for you. I tried it once and broke out in hives. I can't even teach with any sense of maturity (my students will agree to that one). I respect the job and know how important it is to get students ready to be grown- ups, but ultimately I just love having fun in my classroom. I hated those stodgy, mature teachers growing up and refuse to perpetuate the crime.

So, as I enter my next year of living on this giant rotating ball of humanity, I have several goals. Write two more books, each better than the one before. Continue to make new friends and treat my wife like the princess she is. Have fun and be funny. Get less mature. I am hoping that at some point someone will walk up to me and say, "You are not very mature for your age."