turning 30

Dealing with turning 30 is a mind trap. We are lead to believe that once you hit that dreaded milestone that you have to have become a certain type of person. It is unheard of that you can be 30 and want to change everything about your life. People want you to think that you are supposed to be settled and that changing that direction would be detrimental to your existence.

For me, turning 30 was really hard. I wasn’t married and didn’t want to be. I didn’t have children and didn’t want any. I didn’t have a career because what I had been doing was unfulfilling to me, so I quit. I had been lead to believe that because of these facts that I was incomplete or unworthy of being happy. I was worried that I was too old to become anything of significance because of it. I was afraid that I was doomed to be alone and directionless forever.

I live in the south where most women my age are married and have at least one child if not a gaggle by the time they are 30. They live for the husband that will let them stay at home and raise the children in their perfect little house with the white picket fence. They share their life with everyone they know on social networks with captions about how cute their kids are on picturesque trips to the beach or in their matching Easter outfits perfectly posed with smiles on their faces. This is what they are groomed for, and I guess that most of them enjoy it. I just never wanted a part of that kind of life.

I’m not saying that all the women, or men for that matter, that choose the life of marriage and children are succumbing to societal pressures of normalcy, but I believe that some are. I think that given that chance they would strive for more, but once you are tied down with children the chance to change becomes far less possible in their eyes. As a result, they are lead to believe that they have to wait until their children are grown or they just live vicariously through their children. Either way it is harder to realize your dreams with a load of laundry in the dryer and screaming babies in the back ground.

I think that at certain points in my life I could have easily become wrapped up in a man and wanted to procreate with him. I am not saying that I was completely free of the pressures that we have all face to become like everyone else, but I am glad that it never happened. I am however not happy with my path to 30. It has been plagued with insecurities and depression that has held me back in a completely different ways.

I have always considered myself to be behind everyone else my age. I started dating later and have yet to be any good at it. I started working later than most people my age. I hate living alone, so I stayed with my parents which is a stigma in itself. I have always had social anxieties which have kept me from experiencing a lot of moments in my life. I think that all of these facts coupled with my fear of getting older have caused me to look at turning 30 as a curse rather than a blessing. I envisioned me at 30 much more accomplished than I am, but I can’t change that now. All I can do is move on from this point.

Regardless of what I wanted, I have reached that dreaded age. I say dreaded only because that is the word that I would have used to describe 30 before I actually turned 30. Now having reached the beginning of the third decade of my life describing it that way is demoralizing. I realize that I feel the same way inside at 30 that I did at 25. I am still me. I am still that girl that wants to be happy and enjoy her life. I want to live in the moment rather than regretting the past or dreading the future.

Where am I at the age of 30, and where do I want to go is still something I am working on. I have made a lot of changes in the last year because I was unhappy with the direction that my life was going. I realized that my life wasn’t going to be over at 30, and that it was up to me to make the changes that I wanted in my life. I have made decisions that were good and some that were bad, but that is all a part of life. I am going to keep trying to be a happier person at whatever age I am. My life is what I make it out to be. I am not an age.