Well, it happened. On Wednesday, June 1, I turned 30. And you know what? Nothing changed. Well, that’s not true. Yesterday someone asked how old I was and I said, “twennn….thirty!”. It will take some getting used to that I am no longer in my 20’s, but frankly, I’m happy that my 20’s are over.
I’m starting to believe everyone who has been telling me that their 30’s were the best, and that life truly does begin at 30. It all of a sudden feels like the best is yet to come, but that now it’s not as far away.
Those who know me well know that I was NOT handling turning 30 well. Andy, most of all, heard this the most. My mom, Dana (bff), and colleagues also often heard me harping on this milestone birthday. I know a lot of people, women specifically, have a hard time with certain birthdays, 30 being one of them. And we all have different reasons. For me, I felt like I was losing a battle against the clock and was not living up to the expectations I had set for myself. I had this timeline that I created in my mind, and I was not sticking to it. Add in the social pressures and expectations of others, and you have a recipe for tears in my wine.
Speaking of wine, I took off the entire week of Memorial Day / my birthday. I took a staycation. I thought I would spend much of my time sitting on the couch, watching SVU (this all sounds great so far) and crying into a of ice cream or bottle of wine. Why did I want to be such a cliche? Turns out, I spent all week being super productive, seeing friends and family, and spending time with Andy. I had a GREAT week. Proved myself wrong! I was not sad on my birthday. I was happy!
Birthdays have been somewhat disappointing to me, overall. But, this one was not! Of ALL the birthdays, 30 was great. 25 was worse, ha! But in all seriousness, I am trying to erase the timeline in my head and replace it in the words “Just let it be,” and slowly but surely, it’s working. It will take some time to change the way I feel, but I am learning to embrace my 30’s and focus on all of the amazing things in my life.
As for the first part of this blog post title, the hot mess express, I feel like I have to share the fact that in my defense, the weeks leading up to my birthday were WEIRD. Like, all of these bad luck-Murphy’s Law-what the hell is going on-duh I am so stupid things JUST KEPT HAPPENING! Some people told me it was astrology, which I believe. Like, a full moon and planets in retrograde, and all that stuff. Plus, some of it happened on Friday the 13th. I’m very superstitious and believe I am affected by the moon and the planets, so I felt that this was part of my problem. Eventually, I started to joke that I was on the “hot mess express” headed straight to 30ville. I think laughing at my bad luck and mess ups helped me to cope and made turning 30 feel like the end of all of the weirdness.
Thanks to everyone who made my birthday so wonderful. Special shout outs to Andy, Dana and my mom, as always. But really, you were all so wonderful and I love you.
What milestone birthdays, if any, bothered you the most? How did you deal?
Astrologically, 30 is a very important birthday. Read up on the Saturn Return, here’s a good resource on it: http://astrostyle.com/saturn-return/
Also if you go to astro.com and run your chart, you can see your entire astrological profile to get a better sense of your signs other than your sun sign. You can see where in your chart each planet lives and how these correspond to the different houses. On that website, hover on “Free Horoscopes” and then click on “Extended Chart Selection” and there, you can input your info like your birth date, time, and place on Earth (this is important for calculating things like your Ascendant and the inner planets) and it’ll put up your natal chart. Once it’s in the site, you can get an explanation for it under “Personal Portrait” under “Free Horoscopes.”
Happy belated birthday!! I’m glad to hear it was fun 🙂