How Did I Get Here?

When you turn 30, a lot of people – mostly men, don’t ask me why – will jokingly ask you, “how old you, 21?” or some other similar, younger, age.  They mean well.  Most people – mostly women – freak out about turning 30.  I am not one of those people.  I’m perfectly happy to be 30.  Maybe even more than perfectly happy.  Your twenties are for making lots of mistakes, learning the hard way, and getting a lot of what ifs and I wonders out of your system.  I spent a lot of Tuesdays in my early to mid twenties staying at a local bar with my friends until last call and then going to work at 8:30 the next morning.  In your twenties time seems endless and maybe that’s why some people freak out about their thirties because you do definitely start to get a sense of time being finite.

Finite time doesn’t have to be inherently scary though.  It can be thrilling.  You’re 30 – it’s time to focus on what you really want.  When I first thought about turning 30 I felt a sense of disappointment and guilt for having squandered my twenties not getting to work on a career.  I knew people from college who were working consistently in the creative world of Broadway, for exciting, fun sounding companies, taking job opportunities across the globe.  Even my friends who had just simply figured out what they wanted to do with their lives and started careers back home, made me feel jealous.  WHAT WAS I DOING WITH MY LIFE?!  I still really don’t know.  We were one of the first generations to be told, “You can be whatever you want when you grow up!”  As a kid I dreamed of being a veterinarian, an actress, an archaeologist – wild disparate things.  In a lot of ways I still feel like that kid. Some days I just want to talk about movies for the rest of my life, others I want to fight for women’s rights, still others I want to be a fitness guru.  I have no idea which of these things or which other, non-listed thing I’ll end up doing 10 years from now. But I know that no matter what, 10 years from now, I want to be doing something that I love doing most days. Is that so much to ask?

So here I am, 4 months into 30 and wondering where I’ll be at 40. It’s time to focus. I’m married. My husband and I are stupid happy, we have an apartment that suits us just fine, and two cats to snuggle in good times and bad. We’re saving little by little for a house and not yet ready for kids, if we ever do decide to have them.  So things, for the moment at least, are pretty settled. Except that I’m miserable 40 hours of my week.  I hate my job.  It stresses me out to the point of physical illness.  It’s not stressful in the amount of work or how challenging it is.  My work is very simple.  But I’m ridiculously unhappy and the office is very small and very dysfunctional.  It’s clear to me and virtually everyone in my life that it’s time to move on to something better.  This, is without a doubt, my number one goal for my thirties – professional fulfillment. This next one, whatever it may be, may it come blissfully soon, doesn’t have to be THE ONE.  It just has to be a step in the right direction. I’m going for a “started at the bottom now we here” kind of vibe.

So that’s why we’re here. Sort of. Join me for ramblings, musings, rants, incoherence, and possible emotional breakdowns as I navigate 30 and my thirties, chasing the dragon of fulfillment. Marriage, career, travel, fitness, cocktails, movies, fashion, food, and much, much, more to come.