#35 So This is What 30 Feels Like

And why I celebrated my 30th birthday the way I did

Hi!

I turned 30 years old this month. This newsletter is my birthday piece. :)

My birthday lunch

In my 28th birthday essay, I called myself a twirtysomething.

“Is this the new late 20s?”, commented a fellow Medium writer. In fairness, I hadn’t thought of that (and damn I wish I did). I only thought the portmanteau of “twenty” and “thirty” nicely summed up my headspace then: this strange, shifting in-between where it feels like I’m already thirty even if I’m not, mostly because I’m clearly not the twenty-something I used to be.

It was jarring to register then how different my late 20-something self was from my early 20-something self. But it was 2022. Smack in the middle of my Pandemic Skip. Was that why it all felt especially disorienting?

My skip began as a 26-year-old. Fortunately, as an Aquarius, I still got to enjoy my birthday free of Covid. And of course I celebrated it like how any basic mid-20-something would: On my birthday eve, I booked a few tables in a bar, invited around thirty friends, then, when midnight struck, toasted to myself, danced for about five seconds, and shortly passed out after having one too many shots too fast. It was not pretty. (My friends, apparently, had a great time.)

It’s not every day something arrests our human tendency to take things for granted. To be struck with a heightened awareness that, soon, you, your life, and your loved ones will be different. So why not milk this version of my relationships?

Then, the lockdown. The face masks and face shields. The social distancing, the cabin fever, the not knowing what day it is or what’s next or how old I am. Three years later, I reemerge from the pandemic now pushing 30s. Mask-free, I hug and converse and hang out with friends. Friends who are now getting engaged, planning their weddings, expecting babies, breastfeeding and rearing their first child, planning to move cities or countries or continents, or throwing despedidas because they’re about to leave.

It has been a battery of big moments for my friends. Moments that seem to slap in our faces the reality of our age. And yet, as I move on to another decade, it isn’t the loss of youth that’s been weighing on me.

As a birthday person¹, I thought a lot about how I wanted to celebrate my 30th. And though I’d always known what I gravitated towards, I couldn’t help but wonder if I should do differently.

Perhaps the big 3-0 calls for a more grown-up idea? Should I purchase something that screams “I’m a grown woman”? Perhaps a car? Or should I, as a supposedly responsible and future-thinking adult, make some big investment bet? Maybe I’ll buy myself some fancy schmancy gift because, you know, purchasing power! Or what if I, as the experience-loving millennial that I am, book a flight and tick something off my bucket list?

Or what if I throw a party again? But this time: a dinner party. Just something laidback. Intimate. A warm welcome to the mellowing of my supposedly more mature years. Start at 6 PM, be in bed by midnight.

Of course, there’s no right way to celebrate your 30th or any other birthday. There’s only the celebration that feels right to you.

And here’s what felt right to me: I booked a private room in a bar, invited around thirty friends, brought the tequila out, and danced to RnB, my favorite genre, all night.

Yep, it wasn’t too far from my last birthday party.

And yet, it was also galaxies away from it.

First of all, my utmost priority was to hold my alcohol, stay awake and lucid, and actually have memories of the night. Which I did. See? Character development.

But the key difference? If, as a 26-year-old, I threw a party just to throw a party, my 30-year-old self had a more mindful agenda: to be surrounded by the people I love. What I wanted most was to celebrate with my favorites from every era and corner of my twenties. Maybe this sounds like a normal thing to say on your birthday. But to me, this wish felt especially important and deep and palpable.

And that’s because, in the past year, I’ve become painfully aware of how my relationships are on the cusp of change. I look at my longest-standing friends — people I’ve been with since I was 13 and who probably form 70% of my personality — and for the first time, I feel a sharp, looming sense of the brevity and frailty of our friendship. On every occasion, whether it be a wedding, birthday, a simple dinner, or a random get-together, my immediate, pervading thought is, I don’t know how long we’ll be able to keep doing this. I don’t know how long we’ll be unmarried, childless, within the same zip code or time zone.

A friend’s wedding, before she moved abroad

It’s not just the weddings and kids and migrations. Other things have magnified the ticking presence of my loved ones: Being a first-time dog mom, it’s never lost on me that Shelby — if I’m lucky — has only over a decade to be a part of my life. I look at my parents, notice the white strands in their hair have become more evident — and so has the vulnerability of their health.

A day before a friend’s wedding, I shared on Instagram a sentimental post about how long we’ve been friends. “They say the only constant thing in life is change”, I wrote in my caption. “How surreal it feels to know you have constants no matter how much things change.”

I believe this. You can have constants no matter how much things change. And yet, while big life changes like marriage, having children, or moving away don’t end a friendship, they certainly kill a familiar shape of it. No longer will it resemble the connection that proximity and synchronicity once afforded us. As author Dolly Alderton put the glaring truth, “Everything will change. The love we have for each other stays the same, but the format, the tone, the regularity and the intimacy of our friendship will change forever.”

Still a constant, but less immediate. Essentially the same, but extrinsically different.

Now I know this all sounds very melodramatic, but it’s not every day something arrests our human tendency to take things for granted. To be struck with a heightened awareness that, soon, you, your life, and your loved ones will be different. So why not milk this version of my relationships? Exhaust the status quo until it’s no longer. Be wholly, entirely present in the present. Hug tighter. Talk longer. Listen harder. Maybe start thinking about what it means to reach, to be present for others when our relationships take a new mold. But most supremely: Pause. And feel my heart swell with gratitude that I get to have what I have right now.

Am I prematurely mourning? Maybe. I mean, life hasn’t pulled all my closest friends away from me, nor has it pulled me away from them. Thankfully, we still like going out on occasion. We revel in the same humor, show up with the same shamelessness, and party almost the same way we used to as a bunch of early 20-somethings. And perhaps, for a few hours, we are.

1. I say that I identify as a “birthday person” because it occurred to me that there are those who don’t, which, I admit, still feels foreign to my tradition-wired self. But in a way, I get it. Convention puts an unwarranted level of pressure on people to have the best and perfect and most special day ever on their birthday. What if the celebrant is currently in mourning? Is it kind to still greet them with a “happy birthday”?