The big three-oh!

Reflections on turning 30 and the pressure to have it all figured out

I’ve turned thirty. I turned that corner, that page, that irrevocable milestone. Friday night, I had the most dreamy birthday celebrations on the beach, with the evening light matching the color of my Aperol Spritz, all the people I love, and a sunset dip in the sea. I couldn’t have wished for a better way to turn that page.

A sunset dip in the sea to celebrate turning thirty

The past ten years were intense in many ways. I lived intensely for a few years when work hard-play hard was my middle name. And I stood still intensely. Sometimes out of necessity, following lockdowns or my bore-out/burn-out. Sometimes by my own choice, like the time I went on a silent retreat. I have loved intensely, and I have felt intense heartbreak. I have quit two jobs, ended two relationships, and learned so much from doing so. It’s kinda crazy how much happens in ten years and how much we change as a result.

Last week, I found the ‘20 things I wanted to do in my 20s list’ after being reminded of it by a post by

Jodie Melissa Rogers

. I wrote the list when I was 21 and doing my masters in Edinburgh. It was pretty cool to see how many of the things that were on that list I actually did. It made me feel proud and accomplished, especially considering how daunting some of those goals had felt back then. Like solo traveling to a place I’d never been, saving 10k, or becoming confident in public speaking. There are a few things I haven’t managed even though I tried, and I think that’s alright. I’ve picked up my violin several times over the past ten years but never really got back into playing regularly. I’ve tried growing vegetables on my balcony for two summers, but they keep failing… I don’t think I’ve ever watched a French movie without subtitles, but I lived in Paris for six months, which was a lot more impactful and life-changing than just learning French.

I also wrote down a few things that don’t have a simple box to be ticked, and they’re still work-in-progress even though I did make some progress over the past ten years. I wanted to feel strong and healthy in my body, which is an ongoing challenge. I wanted to let go of worrying about the future and things I can’t change – more on that later. And I wanted to accept who I am and care less about what others think – there’s one I have definitely achieved. One of the things I like about turning thirty is that I feel less self-conscious and more confident than ever before. There’s a certain calm and general trust in life that comes with growing older that I can’t wait to get more of.

I’ve thought about making a similar list for the next ten years, but somehow that feels narrowing. As if trying to put my goals and wishes for the next ten years in bullet points will limit my life’s potential rather than expand it. The next ten years hold endless possibilities and unknowns, even more so than the past ten years. I honestly don’t really know what my life will look like in three to five years, let alone ten. I don’t know where I’ll live, what job I’ll be doing, and whether I’ll have kids – or not. Not having the answer to many of these significant life choices makes it seem impossible to catch my dreams for the next ten years in a few bullet points.

Access to birth control and education has made it possible for many women of our generation to postpone “settling down” in the traditional sense (i.e. getting married and having kids). Now that I’ve reached thirty, these life-determining choices are becoming increasingly hard to avoid, and they feel more definitive than the choices I made in my twenties. Ten years ago, I still had so much time to experiment, to change jobs, cities, or relationships if something or someone didn’t work out. Even though I know that’s technically still possible now that I’ve turned thirty, my mind was convinced otherwise and has worked hard the past few months to work everything out before turning thirty.

Lauren Powell

words it perfectly in her post on turning thirty. She says: “The lead up to this birthday has been plagued with much anxiety, in both the flippant and very real sense, about where I am in life, about what I have (or more to the point, have not) achieved. I’ve worried quite incessantly about not being where I want(ed) to be. About not having a plan for how to get there. About not really knowing where or what that place is. It's so annoyingly cliché - falling into the trap of the unrealistic societal pressure to have it all figured out by now.”

I wonder whether societal expectations or my biological clock had me fall into the trap of scolding myself for not having my life figured out. Perhaps it’s a bit of both. Either way, people around me are getting married and having babies, so these topics are becoming increasingly hard to avoid. In the meantime, I try to dissect whether these things –marriage and babies– are something I really want or whether they’ve just been at the forefront of my mind because they are what a thirty-year-old woman ought to be thinking about. A thought process that is not aided by the myth of a female fertility cliff at 35. But even with scientific research granting women a few more years to make these important decisions, it sometimes still feels like I only have a few years left to do all the things I want to do —to enjoy the freedom that comes with a well-paid job, a savings account, and no kids— before everything changes. One week, I felt a strong urge to settle down and start a family; the next, I was flooded with the urge to take a sabbatical and travel the world now that that’s still an option.

Then, miraculously, a few weeks before my actual birthday, a sense of calm came over me that I hadn’t felt before. I’ve never felt happier in my love life, and work-wise I’m also in a pretty good place. Every now and then, I get a little obsessed with my dreams for the future, my desire to be somewhere I’m not yet at - a bigger house with a garden in a quieter environment, closer to nature, or a job that brings me more fulfillment and better reflects who I am. But I also feel a deep trust that all these things will come at the right time and that forcing them into existence won’t speed up the process. It’s a relief that gives me space to enjoy what’s in front of me rather than to be frustrated about what’s not. When I realize that this moment in time and all its goodness will soon no longer be here, I want to enjoy it as much as possible. That’s not always easy, and I have to remind myself of this regularly, but it’s a truth I try to live by.

So, as to the question of settling down versus traveling the world, I want both. And maybe I can have both, just not at the same time.

✍🏻 I’d love to hear your thoughts on turning thirty (or twenty/forty/sixty). Do you feel any pressure to have everything figured out, and how do you deal with it? Let me know in the comments!