I cried on the phone to my grandad (who was 73 at the time) when I turned twenty. I was at university, struggling with the beginnings of chronic migraine, and not feeling ready to say goodbye to teens and to hello to adulthood.
Now, turning thirty, I'm having mixed feelings because not much has changed in those 10 years.
Remember that episode of Friends, 'The One Where They All Turn 30'? Well it just so happened to be on tv again recently. It's not unknown for me to have a Joey mini meltdown, shouting "WHY GOD WHY" over the whole ageing process, but Rachel and her realisation that she's unmarried and childless at thirty really hit home.
Reaching a certain landmark birthday can be incredibly daunting.
Seeing friends a colleagues advance in their careers, get married, have children, buying homes of their own can be disheartening when I'm not even close to reaching any of those milestones myself. The added pressure of knowing my parents and their generation all seemed to have life sussed at this age has left me feeling rather inadequate.
But I'm trying to channel my inner Jenna Rink, push those negative feelings aside and be "thirty, flirty and thriving".
I always thought that I'd reach a certain age and just know - feel like an adult, be assured of what I was meant to be doing and be content with everything. But life is a constant learning process- especially with a chronic illness. I don't have everything firgured out, and my milestones may be different to the norm, but as Carrie Bradshaw once said, “Your 20s are for making the mistakes, your 30’s are for learning from them".
Here are 13 more quotes to being 30:
"The only time you really live fully is from thirty to sixty. The young are slaves to dreams; the old servants of regrets. Only the middle-aged have all their five senses in the keeping of their wits." - Hervey Allen
"It is never too late to be what you might have been." - George Eliot
"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do." - Mark Twain
"Do learn a new skill, Don't feel pressured to pop out kids, Do enjoy your sexual prime, and Don't be bogged down by your past." - Olivia Wilde
"At 30 you finally start to catch up to those dreams you’ve been chasing for the last 10 plus years." – Bonnidette Lantz
"The woman you're becoming will cost you people, relationships, spaces and material things. Choose her over everything." - Unknown
"If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door." - Milton Berle
"At 30, you're old enough to look back, and young enough to look forward." - Unknown
"I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work." - Thomas A. Edison
"Turning 30 was really big for me. I can get really stuck on I don't like this or that about myself. I've found that the only thing that breaks that for me is being able to spend time alone, going to the movies by myself or going to art museums alone. I do that a lot. I've discovered the importance of even 15 or 30 minutes a day where it is just me." - Reese Witherspoon
"Actually, I think that turning 29 was more difficult, because once I turned 29, I anticipated 30 for the whole year, so by the time 30 came around it really wasn't that bad." - Michelle Pfeiffer
"It's really something for people who are approaching 30 to take a look at what that means to them. I think turning 30 is a chance to re-identify with yourself." - Neil Patrick Harris
"I'm turning 30 years old this year it's better than 20, I'll tell you that. The lessons I've learned." - Christina Aguilera
Photo by Johannes W on Unsplash
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