Gazing Toward Thirty

Reflections on a birthday and the wish I hope comes true

This Friday, I turn 30.

This birthday is particularly special as it is my golden birthday. Thirty on September 30. If you’re a close friend of mine, you’ve been hearing about this milestone for months, nay the greater part of this entire year. It has been properly celebrated through premature (albeit kind) words of congratulations, as well as by way of an entire week reflecting, laughing, and making core memories under a bright Mallorcan sun.

It may sound hyperbolic but staring down the barrel of a new decade, I feel differently. I think it’s true what they say: although we amble about afraid of all the unknowns of aging, I like to believe it only gets better with time.

Don’t get me wrong, in addition to the aspects of turning 30 I am welcoming with open arms, there are also parts that completely terrify me. I recently attempted to describe this dichotomy to a family member, and then again to a friend over dinner. With as much detail as I could muster, I explained how I’ve been experiencing the weight of the impermanence in what seems like everything: my parents aging, my youth fading, the dynamic of my relationships shifting, my hormones and my body naturally pointing me toward a new season. But that’s life isn’t it? I don’t say this to sound trite; it very much so is life. We all progress toward death independent of the year in which you start. More so, I say this to bring focus to the ever-present juxtaposition that permeates everything, everywhere, all at once (and yes, this is a nod to the A24 film). Life is embracing newfound wisdom and peace that comes with entering a new decade and also mourning the inevitable shift from what once was.

So as I look toward thirty, I am feeling it all. I can’t help but light up with a peculiar hum of excitement standing at the precipice of all to come. It’s tough to articulate what it is exactly, but I have a strong sense that it is more of what I’d always hoped my life to be, and that thrills me. Naturally, I am also having strong internal discourse with myself about life’s big questions and some of life’s questions that fall in a category more vain. An example of the former being if I want kids and when seems to be the timing that makes sense. The latter if botox continues to align with my values about aging and beauty. Then of course there’s everything in between.

As always, these smaller questions open up larger themes such as the criteria we use to value women, personal sexuality and its evolution, and the decisions we make (or don’t) that affect the course of our lives forever.¹ Needless to say, when I admit I’m feeling it all, I’m really feeling it all.

I think the most awe-striking part of it is that these conversations—this big, ever-present pool of question marks and insecurities, “cans” and “cannots” I find myself treading water within—happen within the span of days, hours, minuscule moments. In a flash, I feel both the heaviness of the fact that I will never get this day back, this Wednesday in the shadow of my thirtieth birthday, and also the vastness of the future that lie ahead. It happens so quickly, I almost have to jolt myself into consciousness to see if it even happened at all. And that’s life too, isn’t it? It’s quick.

Per usual, I can’t pretend to have all of the answers, and I hope you don’t continue to return to this newsletter hoping I do. Less than 48 hours before my birthday, all I can really do is be honest about what I know to be true. And so far, in my nearly thirty years in this lifetime, it is this:

Life is messy. It rarely makes sense. But it is also so inexpressibly, overwhelmingly beautiful. And regardless if you’re 13, 30, or 93, I believe there’s an undercurrent that continues to call us back home—to the thrilling parts, to the truth, to ourselves. The fear will always be present, even if it’s not felt, it’s there, ready for us to muck our way through. Try as I might, I cannot seem to will it away, and I don’t think you can either. The more I lean into the big, the hard, and the scary, the more proof I glean that the other stuff exists too, until yet again I find myself back at square one, learning to appreciate it all—all the feelings, all the doubts, all the decades.

Recently, I’ve been obsessed with this concept of creating a “rich” life. I don’t mean monetarily. When I use the term “rich”, I’m speaking to the parts of life that feel so unequivocally resonant to the soul. This richness permeates the big facets, such as who I choose to spend my time with and what I will and will not stand for. But it also bleeds into the minute details of my day-to-day. What foods nourish my soul? What books expand the way I show up? Will I inject my forehead with botox or not? As I enter into a new decade, it is my hope I continue leaning into the richness I know the world will continue to offer me if I can gather enough courage to wade through the rest of the shit. Like sifting through the fuzz to find a specific radio frequency, it might take a bit of fine-tuning, but once I strike the chord, I’ll feel it throughout my entire body and I’ll know it by name. Life is beautiful, and it is intricately mine.

As I gaze toward 30, it is also my hope that you continue to tune into your version of richness too. I am not special. I don’t have some manila envelope-wrapped piece of information you have yet to uncover. We can all create a beautiful life of our own design, and I genuinely believe that.

So if I were to possess a cake with hypothetical candles, 30 of them to be precise, when I gently close my eyes to conjure a wish, filled with a particular kind of hope that whatever followed the extinguishing of the flames would come true, I’d wish for that. For you and for me and for everyone to continue tuning into the richness. With as quickly as the past three decades have come and gone, if there is one thing I’ve learned from it all, it is that life is too short not to.

To tuning into the richness. Cheers.

1. Side bar: I understand that this week’s newsletter may carry an undertone of foreboding; I promise I don’t mean to be a pessimist. All I’ve ever hoped to be is real and these are the very human themes emerging in my field of view.