What I’ve Learned in my 30s (Thus Far)

Le photo by Caroline Owens

Two years ago, I turned thirty, feeling completely on top of my game. I had a new boyfriend who had just gifted me with a fancy trip to Asia. I had friends, family and a studded Wang dress to celebrate in. I had no regrets and enough debaucherous memories to get me through a lifetime of domestic mundanity. I had an exciting new career opportunity. In my mind, all the puzzle pieces were in the palm of my hand and life would easily fall into place.

Since then, I have been through two breakups, one real loss, one real love, sleepless nights, awful dates, amazing trips – enough interchanging light and darkness to make life feel like a damn marinière. Your early thirties are exciting, fascinating, fast – the stakes are higher, the game is more challenging, and there is so much less time to waste on bullshit. The blazing flag of your twenties – assurance – is constantly knocked down by new knowledge and theories, forcing you to evolve. The more you know, the less you really know.

Here are a few things I have on lockdown so far. Forgive me if I change my mind about them tomorrow. 

Health is wealth (and an investment). 

Being in your thirties is like running through a large chunk of your car mileage and being forced to stop at a service station every few months to estimate the damages.  All the sh*t you did in your twenties – the diets, the alcohol, the cigarettes, the promiscuous sex – convert into acid reflux, asthma, TMJ, HPV, high cholesterol and a bunch of other self-induced ailments that cost you a fortune in out-of-network specialists. You study your blood tests like literary masterpieces and allot more shelf space to supplements than to makeup. A functioning mind and body become a newfound privilege.

Your looks don’t go.

At least, not right away. Call me ignorant, but I used to see thirty as a physical pinnacle after which one’s looks hit a rapid decline. I now find that women look better in their thirties. They learn to dress themselves, they sculpt their bodies instead of re-modeling them, they freshmen up via Botox, and, most importantly, they lose that look of naiveté that makes it so easy to fish a 20-something out of a crowd. Also, cheekbones.

Everyone is f*cked up.

Absolutely everyone. The more you get to know people, the more you realize that they are just Pandora’s boxes of fears and insecurities and weird kinks that you are better off never discovering. Also, just because somebody is married with child doesn’t mean that they are “normal” – many marriages are merely cesspools where issues feed off each other, grow and prosper!

Friends are paramount.

Good friends are your security net. No matter how busy life gets and how far you progress in your relationship, make time for them. Text them, call them, listen to their whining, help them pack boxes and move across the world. Keep the old ones close but make space for new ones as well. When you have kids, you will be forced into the mommy friend chamber, so it’s good to have as many self-selected humans as possible.

Parents are cool.

Speaking of friends, it turns out that your parents make excellent friends – and drinking partners! They can also be far more interesting to talk to than people your own age, so spend as much time with them as your sanity can endure. Or be like me and live with them a few months of the year! You will never regret it.

Yes, you can handle it.

Life is a giant b*tch that will make you deal with more stuff you thought you could handle. But, somehow, you will.

These are the good times.

This sounds really existential, but there is something that happens in your thirties that makes you re-evaluate the concept of time. You realize how fast “now” becomes “last year,” which then becomes “when I was thirty-two,” which then morphs into a nostalgic “when we were young.”  The goals you are chasing  so fervidly will, at fruition, come with their own sets of problems. Don’t stop chasing them, just appreciate everything you have today. As cliché as this sounds, true happiness – the kind that strikes from within – comes solely with gratitude. The sooner you tap into that, the more you will save on Lexapro.

Navel grazing complete. Regular programming to resume next week.