Turning thirty

If I could go back in time and tell myself anything as I entered my twenties, I’d say the insecurity you feel about your career, your sexuality, your self esteem, your relationships, your body, your agency and place in the world are all things to be kneaded through and not ignored in pursuit of perfection. 

You have my permission to do absolutely nothing, achieve nothing, be no one, be uncool and emotional and not inspiring at all. You do not need to have lived your entire life in this decade and you are allowed to (and will) come out of it with more questions than you found answers. 

I have likened approaching my thirties to dancing with the decaying corpse of my young adulthood. Now after five months of dancing alone, a new self is emerging from the shadows.

I don’t know the routine to match her steps. She refuses to do the only dance I know. 

She encourages me to be disagreeable: not in an argumentative sense but in the way I don’t laugh when someone makes a mean joke at my expense. She points out how I was not the victim of callous villains but rather that we are all complex and traumatised people who are deserving of grace. She forgives me for the times I acted from a need to be liked. She shows me the scabs of my self deprecating humour. She surveys my harsh internal landscape and comments on how it has dehydrated the way I see myself and my potential.

She runs naked into the ocean after sunrise. She cheerfully prepares dessert to thank the host of a dinner party. She doesn’t make fun of me for repeating affirmations. She is honest about her experience but is tired of explaining. She isn’t compulsively trying to prove herself.

Living with her has, at times, made me feel I am leading a double life by wearing somebody else’s skin. There’s something dissociative about her, not in the way one escapes into a drink but more like being alone in an aquarium watching the fish and quietly hoping to stumble upon an exit.

Turning thirty at this point in my story is more than a coincidence. It’s a cosmic synchronicity that has already been defined in the timeless and formless dimension. I tick along the track in my little carriage under the delusion that I have any control over my decisions but she knows they’ve already been made and all I have to do is wait for the signs.

We just assume that sobriety means you become a more pleasant person. But it’s not always true. I oscillate between finally being free and being imprisioned in my reality. It means I am more grouchy, cry more and steadfastly refuse to do things I don’t want to do. It means I’m still not always the version of myself that people want around. I have a lot less bandwidth for incongruity. People pleasing has become an itchy cardigan in the closet of my personality and I am more socially awkward than I’ve ever been. But every uncomfortable moment I sit through without drinking is the greatest achievement of my life.

For women, the 29-to-30 transition means we are confronted with life decisions that have just, up until this point, been a faraway concept like misty mountains in the distance. Suddenly, we find ourselves at the foot of the mountain with whiplash. The decision of whether or not we want children encloses in on us, and if the answer is yes, how the fuck are you going to make that happen without sacrificing everything you’ve worked for (both literally and internally) in the process?

On Winter Solstice last week, I was greeted by three archetypal forces through a vision during a group meditation. I saw the toddler (the Fool), the pregnant mother (the Goddess) and the crone (the Trickster) all dancing around the fire. I was reminded that I already have everything I desire.

The greatest discovery I made in my twenties is that finding joy in life doesn’t have to be any more complicated than just simply looking around and really noticing that you are, in this very moment, alive.

I realised in my twenties is that life is only as as beautiful as:

• the sun shining through the trees

• or glittering ontop of the water

• the cat with her legs tucked under herself

• the steam rising off a cup of tea

• the people cluttering onto the train

• the song you’ve played a thousand times 

• the baby giggling at his mother

• the glowing embers of a piece of wood on fire

• or the small group of people laughing until they cry

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