Thirty

I’m thirty.

I know what you’re thinking. “Hi, Thirty. I’m Dad.”

To which I say…good one. You always know how to keep it funky-fresh.

Yesterday I woke up to an existential crisis. It’s not that I’d been dreading the big 3-0, exactly. If anything, each passing year brings me closer to my eighties, which is when I really expect to thrive. Just that it was my last chance to panic. It felt foolish not to take advantage of that.

This morning was different, though. I leapt out of bed (not because of any intrinsic motivation, but because the puppy was about to have an accident in the bedroom) and put on a SKIRT and a SENSIBLE SWEATER. Now that I’m thirty, I’m all about that SUBSTITUTE TEACHER LOOK. I penguin-walked over icy sidewalks to the local cafe and did some WORK. No time for nonsense. I am a LADY in my THIRTIES, and that means…

Actually, I don’t know what it means. Which is fun, I think! It seems to be this sort of amorphous time when you’re just continuing down whatever path you’ve chosen—which, for me, falls along the lines of “eccentric hermit.” So really, I get to decide what I want this decade to look like, which is extremely freeing. For instance, instead of worrying about all the things I haven’t accomplished, I can:

  • Pursue my true passions, which include recreating scenes from old MGM musicals by myself and brooding in nature

  • Pick up new hobbies, like ice dancing

  • Re-pierce my ears, which will be a pretty wild ride

  • Finally start dressing like my style icon, Ms. Frizzle. Yesterday two teenage girls referred to me as “that lady,” so I’ve clearly passed the age where anyone cares what I look like

  • Go grey early, and all at once, as if I’ve been cursed by an old crone

  • Stop being afraid of everything all of the time—maybe I’ll try being afraid of only some of the things all of the time, or all of the things some of the time. Ideally, obviously, I’d only be afraid of sensible things, like badger attacks, in the appropriate setting, like when I stumble into a cete of badgers, but I’ll settle for incremental progress.

  • Maybe buy an extravagant hat

The options are limitless for a woman who’s thirty and wordy and…blaving? Is that right? I think that’s how it goes.