Thirty sounds so momentous.
I spent a lot of July and August preemptively mourning the end of my twenties, and by the time September actually rolled around, I was pretty accustomed to the idea of bidding farewell to my twenties and started to see the bright side of turning thirty.
This year, to mark such a big birthday, I opted for multiple weekends of celebrations. (I figured that as time goes on, it only becomes more and more socially unacceptable to be such a diva about one’s birthday, so I wanted to go all out while I had a good excuse.)
As I reflected on the celebrations, the theme became evident to me: quality time with my favourite people.
I had a weekend with friends who flew in from out of town, where the focus was on having fun, relaxing together, and letting them get to know each other better. I wanted to feel all the warm fuzzies, rather than any thrills or specific experiences. I have a similar weekend planned with local friends to do dinner and karaoke.
The weekend of my actual birthday was spent with my parents. We didn’t do anything particularly crazy like fancy meals or extravagant outings; instead, we ate a bunch of homecooked meals and celebrated with a cake at home. Old me would have keeled over at the thought of being at home, wearing comfy pants, and eating a mishmash of home cooked food and takeout on my birthday.
But this year, it all felt right. The best presents I got (other than a Labubu, lol) were gifts of time.
There was the gift of people spending time with me (and traveling to do so). Then, there were also gifts like handmade quizzes/games for the group to do together, a special playlist, an incredibly fancy (and made from scratch) meal, and so on. When my parents asked me what I wanted, I racked my brain and could not think of anything. (I ended up asking for couch cushions. For the ergonomics.)
And for all of this, I feel so much gratitude.
I am grateful for friends who put in the time to spend with me. I am grateful that my needs are met such that I can luxuriate in solely wanting time. I am grateful that I have the physical wellbeing to enjoy this time. Relatedly, when I was asked at (one of) my birthday dinner(s) to deliver a speech, I chose to use that time in the spotlight for my soapbox du jour:
You only get one body in this lifetime and you ought to take care of it.
It’s pretty self explanatory. On the actual day of my thirtieth birthday, I got out of bed, ate some food, and went to the gym. I didn’t really want to, and I went light that day, but I knew it was important above all else that I went in order to keep my 3 workouts / week commitment to myself.
Anyway, I’ll wrap up with a few other lessons I’ve learned:
A lot of the small things I used to care a lot about are pretty silly. Cherishing what we have in limited supply is what matters the most—and that’s likely time and wellbeing in tandem.
The importance of chosen family. I’m extremely grateful that I love my non-chosen family. But also, my life would be incomplete without the chosen family—i.e. my closest friends—that I’ve surrounded myself with. They represent so much to me and make up a lot of the fullness of the life I live. I’m grateful to have so much love around me, and to be a part of so many other people’s lives as well.
If you poll your close coworkers on how old they think you’re turning, that tends to be a dead giveaway that it’s a milestone birthday. So it makes the guessing game kind of lame.
This is the time to watch teenage drama shows. I just finished XO, Kitty and it reminded me of the naïveté of teenagehood and high school. Such a big part of that was seeing how big life can be when you love big and fall hard. And I love that. It’s something we could probably do more as adults.