I remember growing up watching The King of Queens on broadcast television because my family couldn’t afford cable. Doug and Carrie Heffernan (played by Kevin James and Leah Remini) live in a 3-bathroom house in Queens, New York in the late 1990’s into the early 2000’s. Towards the beginning of the series, there’s an episode where Carrie is dreading to be turning 30, as it’s deemed as “being washed out and old” and “one step closer to your grave”. Me, being an 11 year old with no sense of age or time, laughed and thought, “wow, I should be married and living in a house before I turn 30!”
Here I am, now 30-years-old myself, not being or having any of these things… oh, and hi; my name is Liz.
I knew I was not going to enter my 30s with all of these things that are deemed as adult milestones. For one, I had spent most of my twenties still trying to figure out who I was and what I wanted to do in life. I was exploring what my identity was after not truly having one in my early 20s. I was busy in college and then went straight into grad school without taking any breaks to explore who I was outside of being a student. By the time I was done with my studies, I was a 24-year-old woman just beginning to see what my place was in this society. To be quite frank; I was not anywhere near having my shit together by my mid-20s to enter my 30s with all these adult milestones.
Some people chose to get married and/or have kids in their 20s. Some people chose to go away for college and then moved away from home once they graduated. Some people moved out of their family’s house on their own, whether it was with friends they knew, their partner, or with a couple of random roommates. But, some people choose to go against these milestones due to many external factors. For me, I just had other plans for my adulthood.
I knew from a young age that children wasn’t going to be something I wanted for myself in adulthood. I didn’t (and still don’t) see myself being a mother, and as I got older the pressure of becoming one or “starting my own family” was now something others were concerned about for me. In all honesty; I still have that mindset that if anyone my age is having kids, it feels like it’s a teen pregnancy.
I know I am getting older and that my generation is now at that place in life that we’re getting married and we’re having kids and we are building our lives as we continue on our adulthood journeys. We get excited over the things that our parents got excited for like home decor and cleaning supplies. We’ve become those adults that roll their eyes at the teenagers commuting to and from school on public transportation. Also, we are now victims of our childhoods now being considered “vintage”.
The pressure of getting older, for me, is the constant reminder that while time waits for no one, you shouldn’t also jump into doing things because of how quickly time passes by. That sounds complicated, but in simpler terms; I am afraid that when I’m ready to hit these adult milestones it will be too late. For context; I am now that the age where the chances of having children begin to decline as I get older, but I cannot stay that children are in my current 5-year plan. I also cannot say that I’ll be living on my own anytime soon or be in a serious relationship that will lead to marriage; but I’ve learn that if these things are meant to be for me, they will happen when it’s time.
Going into my 30s, I worried about this time feeling like my “deadline” age, but now actually being 30, I feel differently. I feel like this is just the beginning of my adulthood. I feel like I am at the tutorial phase of a new game, learning the basic functions of what adulthood is like. As I get further into my 30s, I will take what I’m learning and apply that towards the rest of my adulthood, y’know? Life is honestly just a long play-through of a game, in my opinion.
I’m looking forward for all of the experiences I’m still left to have in my 30s. I am looking forward to travel to more places, attend more concerts, and continue to cross things off my bucket list. One piece of life advice I am taking from those older than me is simply to do everything I want to do before I decide to hit the adult milestones in my life. I like where I am currently; I feel like I am currently at the place where I’m learning who I am as an adult and what it looks like on me. I am currently building my professional career in higher education and taking opportunities as much as I can to further (and better) myself for the future. In the meantime, I am learning to balance my professional life and personal life by completely separating the two; work on projects and take on tasks at my job, but hit up a happy hour with my partner and his friends after work. I am learning to approach life in a “slow burn” type of way as a person whose mind is constantly on a race (that’s another blog post for another day).
For me, I’m taking turning 30 as being the first page of a new book in my life. I am leaving all of my baggage from my 20s in my 20s, and anything that challenged me or flawed me is now just a lesson that I’ve learned and experience that I’ve gained. For me, 30 is like meeting a new person: the other person doesn’t know anything that you’ve done, went through, or who you once were in your past; they only know the person that you are right now.
Letters From Liz. 