So, I guess this title isn’t fully true. I’m two weeks away from 30, never have been flirty – not intentionally or very well anyway – and I guess I’m not doing that bad if you really think about it. But, and I don’t think I’m alone in this, the prospect of turning 30 is really quite daunting. This turn of a decade feels a lot more monumental than it did when I was turning 20.
First off, I don’t feel 30. I don’t know if that’s because my life isn’t where I thought or wanted it to be by the time I was 30 or because I still act and enjoy the things I used to do in my early 20’s. I thought I would feel a lot more grown up by the time I hit 30. I thought I would’ve been in my dream job – not quite my fault, redundancies happen and bills have to be paid. I thought I would be in a long-term relationship in a house that I bought in a place that I love – this one’s not too bad, I live in a rented house and have recently moved my boyfriend of just over a year in, but I’m still in the not-so-great town I grew up in… At least a lot of my friends are still nearby! Then there’s the big C word – children – yep that ol’ tick tock biological clock. I’ve never really been the type of girl to dream about having kids like some of my friends have. I’m quite happy with my attitude-of-a-teenager 4-year-old fur baby. With him I can leave him in the house when I go out and I don’t have to worry about half the stuff that I would with a baby. However, the older I get the more I question my desire, especially now one of my closest friends is pregnant. Something definitely feels like it’s shifting… But still, with less than 14 days to go before I hit the big 3.0., I don’t feel in any way shape of form that I am responsible or have the knowledge I need to get through life as a fully-fledged adult.
What’s been a real eye-opener is the fact that my mum turned 60 this year. This resulted in it dawning on me that when she was my age she had been married for 5 years, had a 3 year-old-boy, bought her second house and had me coming only a few months later. In emergencies, I more often than not will call my parents and ask for help and advice, how can I be the one that someone else ever comes to for such knowledge?
Then there’s the fact that I don’t think I look 30. I still get asked for my ID – which nowadays really is a huge compliment – but is that because the clothes I wear aren’t that of a 30-year-old or because my cheeks are still a little chubby. That said what is a 30-year-old supposed to wear? You get told at the ripe old age of 20 to start using anti-aging face creams and I’m not going to lie, I’ve tried, but when it comes to skincare I really am a lazy fucker. I am one of those awful people that still use face wipes, I barely use the cleanser and toner I bought at great expense and I apply moisturiser only as and when I feel I need it. This does not sound like the skincare routine of a grown up, does it? The only thing I do do every day religiously is wear an SPF primer as I’m terrified my freckles are one day going to merge into dark spots like my mum and grammy’s did. The fact that they both lived in Hong Kong for years could also have something to do with it but I refuse to take that chance.
Further to that, I got told recently that if I wanted to try botox the sooner I start the better. Has anyone else heard this? Surely it’s better to start when you’ve got lines and wrinkles quite badly so you don’t fall into the trap of getting excessive work done. I’m no professional, I hadn’t even thought about botox… at this moment in time I think I’m more of an age-on-my-own kinda gal, but ask me in another 10 years.
I think the reason 30 feels like such a big deal is that now more than ever I’m starting to appreciate the evaporation of my youth. I do have more responsibilities now, whether they’re obvious to me or not. In my 20’s I felt like the world was my oyster, I could do anything I wanted and I had all the time in the world to do them. The issues I face now seemed light years away. Fast forward a decade and here I am questioning where my time – and my life – is going. Maturity has gifted me with the knowledge that I’ll never truly be able to interrogate, explore and understand everything. There’s just so much out there! As much as I want to hold on to each of my passing years and not have them slide so easily through my fingers, I simply can’t. None of us can.
With that said, feeling this way has lit a fire in me to actually pursue things rather than sit and wish for them to happen. Like re-launching this blog. I love to write and somewhere along the way I put that on the back burner. I keep telling myself and others that I want to write a book as well and I haven’t written more than a couple of pages, so I’m hoping to put some real effort into that too. Just writing these thoughts down has felt cathartic. I won’t beat myself up if I don’t fulfil everything I want to though as lets face it, whether I’m where I want to be in life or not – I am definitely who I want to be in life and that alone makes me happy to exist.
