Undoubtedly some, if not most, of that feeling of age relates to being a parent now. Nothing forces you to look at the world in more “grown up” terms than when you have someone’s life depending on your ability to make the right decisions. Really impossible, I think, not to mentally age a bit due to the responsibilities being a parent endows you with.

But I don’t feel as old as I thought I would. I’m sure this is common, and I’m betting we’ve all awoken one birthday morn and said, “Huh, when I was 10 I thought 34-year-olds were really old… but I don’t feel like I thought that guy would feel.”

I guess what we don’t see when we’re 10 is that the 34-year-old still has that 10-year-old in them. They’re wearing adult clothes, have adult jobs, and talk about adult things, but they were 10 once and so know how to be a 10-year-old if and when the opportunity arises.

And so as much as being a parent has made me feel my age more than anything else ever has, having a kid also creates those opportunities. I get to sit and watch cartoons, play with blocks and snack on sugary cereal. Sure, I have to pay bills, stress about money and generally just speak adultese, but I’m damn sure that when I turned 25 I wasn’t walking around with “Dance your cares away (clap clap) worries for another day…” stuck in my head (thank you Jim Henson and bit torrent).

I leave in a couple hours to grab the shuttle from Suzhou to the Shanghai Pudong airport where I’ll collect what is sure to be a slightly achy and jet lagged version of my friend. I’m super excited. Of course because it’s been a year and a half since I’ve seen my friend, but I think the excitement has much more to do with the anticipation of sharing a part of my life that despite being friends for nearly 20 years, he’s virtually unaware of.

Much like when I brought Maggie home to Canada the Christmas after we got married, it was great for her to meet the parts of my family she hadn’t met, and it was good to visit home — but the most interesting part was sharing with her a whole side of my life that she had never experienced. She only knew “Ryan in China”, and had never met “Ryan in Canada” – his friends, his hometown, his memories, etc.

Cory and I up at his cottage in 2004, the summer before I left for China. The fish were small, but the beer helped.

Likewise, Cory and I grew up together. We weathered those awkward and painful high school years together. We witnessed each others first loves, first loves lost (still trying to remember where we left her), first jobs, first time driving, first time drinking, first time leaving home, etc. As a guy with two (wonderful) sisters, he is the closest thing to a brother I’ve ever known.

But since moving to China in 2005 our paths have run further and further apart. While four and a half years is a relatively short period of time, it’s caused me to miss out on a lot of things back home, and caused the people I care about back home to miss out on a lot of things in my life. As much as I do my best to stay in touch and keep up with what is going on, the pictures people paint for me become less and less vivid until they resemble little more than bullet points in an e-mail, and not the life-affecting changes that they actually are.

As much as I “know” life is moving on steadily without me back home, it isn’t “real” to me in a physical sense. And I imagine it is much the same for my friends and family back home with my life here. They all know I live in China, and presumably have some sort of life here; but I am guessing it doesn’t really exist for most of them because they’ve not seen it and been apart of that story themselves.

That’s really what it comes down to, and why this birthday is more exciting than any I’ve had recently — I’m extremely excited to have such an integral character in my story back in the plot — if even just for a couple weeks.

But I also never expected that such a connection could be formed between myself and a dog. I’ve had lots of pets, including a number of dogs, throughout my life, but Addie is the first dog that was “mine” as an adult.

She’s also the first I’ve raised since a puppy, and I think that brings a bit too it as well, as watching her grow, learn and develop her own personality surely has much to do with the ties that form between two living things.

It doesn’t hurt that she’s just the best dog in the entire world. Doesn’t bark, doesn’t chew our stuff, doesn’t potty in the house, can be left alone for long periods of time uncaged (we’ve never had a cage for her), knows a decent number of tricks, and generally listens to (if not follows) our instructions. She’s awesome.

And today she turns 1 year old – so, Happy Birthday Addie!

Highlights

We got Adobe (named after that which paid for her) from a local pet shop this past February. We had talked about getting a dog, but had always put it off because we weren’t sure how permanently we were staying in any given place.

Getting her at the pet shop, she was considerably more expensive than buying her at the local pet market (3000 RMB vs. about 1000 RMB at the pet market for a pure breed), but puppy survival rates from pet markets are pathetic, and I felt some ethical objections to supporting China’s version of a puppy mill.

At the time we were living in a 3rd floor apartment, so house training was essential – but proved impossible. Fortunately hardwood floors made for quick cleanups.

Despite not understanding where she was intended to pee, she was a quick study when it came to treat-earning tricks and by four months old she had learned sit, stay, shake a paw/give me five, roll over, take a nap/play dead, come, stop, off, no, ok, spin – and has since learned fetch, catch and sit pretty (I’ve sort of slacked off in training her new tricks).

Though we were concerned that four and a half months of improper house breaking might have created a life-long bad habit in her, once we moved to our new place in July and Addie had a backyard, she almost instantly took to going outside.

In September she caught us off-guard and went into heat for the first time. It was a messy month, but will always be remembered with a smile, as she trotted around the house in leopard-print undies.

Being on the first floor, she’s made lots of friends with our neighbours, their kids and their dogs. We regularly have an entire daycare group come by our fence begging for her to come out and see them.

Chinese, perhaps because of a penchants for small dogs, seem to be more afraid of large dogs than most, and I’m always excited to help dispel the idea by letting little kids come and pet Addie and see she’s very friendly and gentle.

Anyway, all that’s to say she’s impossible not to love, and I feel extremely fortunate that we happened to get such a fantastic dog. She truly has added and continues to add a joyful element to my life. And though I maintain that dogs are dogs and kids are kids, that doesn’t mean I can’t love her like the valuable member of our family that she is.

www.flickr.com The Humanaught’s Addie photoset

Meh.

I had a friend ask if I was freaking out about it at all, and really, I’m not even a little. You hear about it, they make Hallmark cards for it, people generally fuss over it. But what I think it has most to do with is contentedness, or a lack thereof.

I tend to look at life like a long string of dots. Each dot is a memory or event that has happened to me. Some dots are bigger and more noticeable, and some are tough to see at all. Regardless of their size, there are a lot of dots between now and when I popped into this world – so, why freak out?

Everything that’s happened in my life has brought me to the point where I am now, and I like where I am.

• I’ve accomplished enough to be happy, but not enough to be lazy.
• I’ve seen enough to be knowledgeable, but not enough to be wise.
• I’ve loved enough to know that it hurts, but not enough to want to stop.
• I’ve grown enough to walk in my father’s shoes, but not enough to fill them.
• I’ve said enough to fill novels, but not enough to stop talking.

My 20s were a helluva ride, and I’m looking forward with much anticipation at what my 30s will teach me.

As I announced previously, I’ve started on a new path with things. I’ll be studying Chinese five days a week come September, and I’ve quit teaching ESL as my primary source of income. Instead of ESL, I’ll be furthering my journey into weird and crazy world of Web development.

Currently I have designed and maintain four reasonably successful Web sites (www.thehumanaught.com, www.lostlaowai.com, www.haohaoreport.com, www.yourchinapal.com). In tandem with expanding these four, I’ll also be developing new projects and freelancing myself out as a Web developer and designer.

I’ll be doing this all under the banner of my new business, Dao By Design. I chose the name to reflect some of my personal views and values, and to act as a reminder of those things. The site is not 100% finished, but I would love any feedback you have.

And certainly, if you or anyone you know is looking for a Web designer, please keep me in mind. Incidentally, if you are looking for some tips about design, blogging, tech stuff or making money online, you might be interested in the new blog I’ve started: The Dao By Design Blog.