I asked you to tell me about your 30th year, or what your idea of turning 30 looks like.
Well, here it is.







30 is finding peace with yourself.
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A new decade, a new chapter, a new set of challenges, and a new set of opportunities.
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Year 30: Growth. Courage. Fear. Anxiety. Highs. Lows. Lots of courage. Vulnerability. Setting boundaries. Making space for me. Learning. Unlearning. Healing. The beginning of coming into my truest self and who I want to be.
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I think of age through the frame of the second digit. So with 30; 30 is 0. Zero is erasure, like how when you multiply by zero, it just goes back to zero. It’s the beginning before the beginning. A new decade, a rebirth.
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I love being 30
Didn’t feel like a seismic shift at all as some people seem to say
When G turned 30 I felt that age too. He’s 17 months older than I
For years, I have told people at work that I’m in my 30s (a lie, now true) to gain authority and influence
And 30 justifies some shifts in life decisions eg not raving until 3am
Prioritizing exercise, back health, less friends but more meaningful
And my 30 tree 😍😍😍😍 although it’s probs almost dead lol
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I was in the far-east of Russia when I turned 30. I had this job where I was traveling everywhere. A lot of really crappy hotels, no internet in the rooms, it was really cold. I do remember, on my birthday, I cooked for a bunch of friends I had where I was living temporarily. Karaoke was involved.
What do I remember from that year? I was applying for a bunch of PhD programs, and I actually got into one, I got into only my dream program, which was weird. So at that point, I was pretty optimistic, even though I dropped out of that program three years later.
I did all sorts of things that undid themselves over the next three years. Trying to demonstrate that I was moving into a new period of life. I quit smoking, I think I got a tattoo around that time.
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I turned 30 in 2020 and it was so wild. As someone who loves to make their birthday a big deal, it was pretty jarring. I had a massage then I got a haircut and had my hair dyed back to match my natural color so I could start letting my grays come through. I asked my partner to stop at the liquor store and pick up a few bottles of wine and he wouldn’t. We ended up eating Nicky’s Thai on the table in my yard. It was 4 of us and I spent over $200 on dinner because I wanted to get everything I wanted. Nobody gave me money for it. And that was it. A pretty telling birthday for what would end up being my 30th year.
I was very glad to be out of my 20s. My 30th year was a blur. I worked my ass off the entire time and made the most money I’ve ever made in a year in my life. I don’t have much of anything to say about it. I was sad the whole time.
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With a baby due exactly one month before my 30th birthday, my year will mean countless diapers, sleepless nights, endless love - and a rediscovery of myself in the new role of 'Mom.'
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30 confuses me - it sounds like a lot of time and not a lot of time. People see it as a big something or other. My friends and I play a game where we count down from three and shout out what color a number, letter, or word is. Thirty is green to me. Those are all my thoughts, I think.
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It's a twinkling feeling when you think about how much can happen in a decade.
I first started fretting about turning 30 when I turned 28. It was my golden birthday and like many other milestones for both myself and the rest of the world, I celebrated it in Covid. I had just sat on the couch a few weeks earlier in my cap and gown with my family and a glass of champagne and watched the dean of UGA call my name and the masters degree I earned on a zoom. I hated my job and was buying into the archaic social norms of being classified as old in 2 years. That it would be harder to find a partner or switch jobs with that three handle. Combine that with a vivid, sometimes overexcited imagination, and the feeling of being trapped that came with the pandemic, and those two years might as well have been two days. While my sisters told me to shut up and stop worrying, it turns out that starting to wrap my head around such a large milestone two years early was the greatest thing for my overthinking brain.
When I think about turning 30, I think about how comfortable I feel in my own skin in a way I didn't two years ago. I think about my 20's: the memories I've made, the people I've lost and gained, the tears I've cried and the adventures I've had, and how they are all little Lego blocks that make up who I am. And I cannot wait to build new ones. Your 30's are full of new possibilities if you're open to them. They're when you get to start seeing plans and hard work that you started years ago come to fruition. You settle into yourself. 29 was a memorable year with a few monumental changes, I got a new job and a new partner, both things that were miles out of my comfort zone. Since I am just starting to feel I hit my stride with both, I can't wait to see what is to come at 30.
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30 is big balloons. 30 is old. 30 is young. 30 makes plans but isn’t afraid to change them. 30 is a haircut (for grown-ups). 30 is reinvention. 30 is ravishing. 30 is established (“established”). 30 questions everything. 30 is curious. 30 remembers. 30 is a new kind of cool. 30 is skincare. 30 measures friendship by the decade. 30 is marriage, or rather, 30 is still marriage. 30 dances in the living room when nobody is home. 30 stops pretending. 30 is searching. For what? We’ll see.
Write! Write! Write:)