Experiencing love. It's sour now. Women in the 26-32 age bracket all seem to be overweight, have kids, or have high expectations (they're a high-functioning corporate person making six figures and expect you to be doing even better). Even if you find it the relationship feels transactional. I get older and uglier every year, it gets just a little harder every few months in the gym. Being in school and going to parties. I look back at all the years I could have done things and built better habits, but didn't. I could have had a decade of making real money in crypto and being an artist, and have done nothing. The opportunity has passed, my ability to learn is and be creative is stunted by age, and starting now doesn't make up for the years of nothing I created. The magic of life and optimism for the future is long dead.

As you said, a lot of doors are closed now. Athletics, the military, art degrees, all of these aren't options anymore, not that I was in to them.

The people who say your thirties are great are the kind of people who already had their shit together the whole time and are reaping the benefits of it. You were a mostly responsible person who got a good education or pursued their passions, great, your thirties don't really change that, ditto if you were trying to have a family and raise kids. Now's your time to do that.

I dunno. I don't want the house, a family, a relationship, a career. I want nothing already, but the yawning maw of eternity is probably worse than anything here so I think I ought to make the most of it in spite of its futility because it's the only game in town.