My daughter turns 3 this week and I waited til the very last possible minute to plan her birthday party. Now that the planning is almost done, people have turned their attention to me and my sister. We turn 30 in exactly 15 days. Neither of us is referring to it as 30, of course. We're gonna be "25" in our own minds. My mom was "26" from the time we were 8 until she turned 50, at which point she decided she should age up to "29" to stay slightly older than her kids. Everybody keeps asking us if we're gonna do anything big to celebrate this occasion. I don't even know what "anything big" means. Half of my friends also turn 30 this year, the other half are already into their 30's. One friend who hit the big 3-0 last month had a very low key celebration, prompting my smartass to joke that he was getting boring in his old age. Until he reminded me I was soon to join him in that 3X hood (credit for the 3X comment to another friend).
I've had a weird journey towards age 30. First I ignored it completely, then I realized it was only six months away and after the year turned over I accepted it was coming and there was nothing I could do about it. So now I am oddly at peace with it all. Age is a number and my number will be 30 in two weeks. And that's okay. It is weird how a number changes people's view though, as if 29 is so much younger than 30. I've never celebrated birthdays in a really big way as it is (except as a kid) so I don't expect to do anything major for this one. It'll come and go like any other day, my sister and I will wish each other 'Happy Birthday' like we do every year, and life will go on. I have absolutely no expectations about my thirties, I only hope they are calmer than my twenties have been. It's funny though, I remember as a kid thinking that 15 was so old and I couldn't wait to get there. Then I couldn't wait to turn 21 (be careful what you wish for, worst year of my life). Once upon a time 30 seemed so old. But now I'd even consider 40 to be young, if only cuz I'm a decade away from that number (god willing).
