Welcome to my 30’s!

Happy New Year!

Today’s post is probably going to be short and sweet to get me back into writing. I’m not going to start with an apology for my absence this time or make any promises to get better at writing more regularly (even though that is my aim). I feel like doing this puts too much pressure on me and makes me avoid my blog more.

I was 30 in November and I didn’t actually find it a huge deal. Lots of people asked “How do you feel to be turning 30?” and “How is being 30 going?” So…

“How does it feel to be 30?”

To be honest, so far, it feels like 29 but with more of a fuss. It doesn’t feel like the massive, scary milestone that people tell me it is. It also doesn’t feel like the magical, yet elusive, “best years of my life” have arrived. This might be an unpopular opinion, but I don’t think we can pin everyone’s best years into the same decade of our lives; it’s all relative.

I vaguely remember when my mother turned 30 and I thought it was such a grown-up age (I was around 8 or 9 at the time). I couldn’t imagine ever being that old! Haha! Now I think she was so young to have had 4 daughters and can’t imagine being a parent at my age. I can just about look after myself…

I would love to be able to chat with her now about how she felt about turning 30 compared to how it actually was. I imagine that being 30 meant something different even 20 years ago. I imagine that 30 year olds were meant to be a lot more serious and grown up. Or maybe that is just how I saw adults as through my child eyes.

By my early to mid-twenties, I had developed this belief that it was ‘embarrassing’ that I was approaching 30 while unmarried, with no driving license, no degree and no property of my own. If anyone feels like this about their thirties, I have one bit of advice, “get a grip of yourself!!”. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean that in a mean way at all. I just think there is much more to life than living to a timeline. Where is the chance for spontaneity and excitement if you want to be rigid?

I’ve learned that there is no need to rush these things, they happen in the right time for you or they may not happen at all. This is also right for you. Just because Ellie down the street looks like she has it all together at 26, it doesn’t mean she feels like she does. We are all striving for more. It must be the human condition.

I especially feel this after the back end of last year when I lost my cousin and a friend in the same day. Both early 30’s. It made me realise that no matter how we want things to fit with our timelines, there is always a bigger and a deeper plan for our lives.

I am definitely not walking into my thirties with it all together, not even close! There are things in my life that I worry may never get resolved / I may never get over, but, I do feel like I carry my baggage a bit easier these days. (And there is still A LOT of baggage!)

My focus for my 30’s is to live a good and happy life.

I want my loved ones to feel how loved they are.

I want to put my all into whatever I choose to do.

I want to make a difference (even just in my small corner of the world).

I want to live. Really, really live.

Everything else is just stuff and noise…