The Big Three-O

I have just celebrated my Big Three-O. I'm still not sure how to describe how I feel. I feel something. Not good, not bad, just... wonder, I guess.

I have seen characters in American series making a big deal of the Big Three-O and, more often than not, it is portrayed like medicine; you don't want to take it, but you have to. I used to wonder if I would be like those characters. Would I get drunk and do something silly? Would I just take a leap and get a tatoo? My 30th birday came and went. Nothing. Well, maybe not nothing.

I was certainly not sad. But I wasn't overjoyed either. If anything, it felt surreal - I'm really thirty? I felt like I didn't know how to feel and wondered if I was experiencing another milestone the way people are supposed to. (I know, I know, everyone is different and, in theory, we are not supposed to feel a certain way.)

I did freak out a bit when I turned 20 though. I thought that when your age started with 2, you should feel like a grown-up. At the time, those in their 20s were grown-ups for me (was I ever that young?). I freaked out because it hit me that I would never be a kid again. It was time to be an adult. But I still felt the same as when I was 15. And feeling 15 was not what I thought a grown-up should feel! Having been told I was mature for my age, it never occurred to me that I would be rattled by my turning 20. I remember walking through the park on my way home, rattling on and on to my best friend about the initial 2 that would accompany my age whenever I filled in forms. My friend, a year younger than me (lucky her!) just laughed and laughed. 

So I kind of expected another session of rattling on about the number 3. But it never came. A friend of mine (also younger than me) asked it I felt any different. The truth is no. After the Not-So-Big Two-O shock, I haven't felt that different about adding more years to my age. Is that a sign that I'm finally a grown-up?

I did stop and look back at my life so far and think about what will lie ahead. This past year has certainly been an eventful year - change of place, work and people. I try to see what the future holds. I try to make plans. By doing that, I hope it means my life is slowly coming together. After 10 years of hopping from one place to another, switching of goals, searching for myself, maybe it's about time it does.