My 30th birthday is exactly six months today.
Last year, I thought nothing could be worse than 29. After my 29th birthday, I knew that none of the things I would have liked to have done before 30 was happening. Have a baby? Only if I managed to get pregnant within 3 months of my birthday. Even if we’d decided to try the chances of someone who’s been on the pill for 10 years getting pregnant straight away are fairly low. Get married? Sure, if I was willing to forego the whole being engaged part – and the bit where I get to arrange my dream wedding – and elope or something. 29, as far as I was concerned, was already too late (I know, how stupid, right? No lectures please! But that’s how I felt.). So 30 shouldn’t be too much of a shock to the system. After all, by the time the big birthday came around I’d have had a year to get used to the fact that I wasn’t going to get what I wanted. After 29, 30 was going to be a piece of cake (mmm, cake!).
Six months on, it appears I was wrong. I still want to bury my head in the sand and pretend my next birthday is never, ever going to come. I still find myself comparing my life to everyone else’s and wondering what, exactly, I’ll have to show for myself once I hit 30. No kids, no husband, no PhD (just a Master’s, which anyone can get), no amazing career. I don’t even own a house (unlike my younger sister – there I go comparing again!) Okay, I moved to Germany, but I came to be with my boyfriend – a built in support network. And I studied German. Not nearly as impressive as dropping everything to move to South Korea without knowing the language first, or emigrating to Australia alone. In fact, I’ve never even been to either of those places. Most of my travel has been within Europe. For holidays – not real, life changing travel. And I still live close enough to my family to be able to run away back home if necessary. As for a career, while I love my job, dedicating my whole life to a career is the last thing I want!
So, six months away from my 30th birthday, I still have no idea what I want to do and feel like I’ve achieved very little. Please tell me this is just a symptom of reaching that milestone and things do get better?
On the plus side, I’m up to 12 in my list of 30 German Towns Before 30, so the remaining 18 should be achievable. I just need to finally get round to blogging about those I actually have been to…
Confuzzledom 