Age is just a number, right?
I turned thirty at the weekend and, apart from happy and hungover, I must admit I didn’t feel a thing. Despite this, I was probably asked about one million times how I felt about it, was I freaking out, did it seem strange, wasn’t I getting on a bit now and more of the same.
I remember a friend of mine turnin thirty a couple of years ago and really struggling with it. I suppose it was this idea that there are certain things we think we should have achieved by a certain age, whether that’s recognising our ‘calling’, finding ‘true love’, having X number of kids or a certain amount of money/property or whatever it is that you feel is important. And if we haven’t achieved it by whatever arbitrary age/deadline we’ve set for ourselves, then we’ve failed. What a nice way to view life – a bit like school, but endless and without the weekends or holidays!
Fortunately I don’t have any of those particular goals, but I must have been determined to feel some sense of comparable failure because it set me off on some process of trying to determine precisely what my personal Thirty Goals might be. What would I expect to have ‘achieved’ by this grand young age? Here’s what I came up with.
To have made a bunch of crazy mistakes – check.
To have survived said mistakes and feel stronger – check.
To have learned whatever a decade’s-worth of self-knowledge might be, by a variety of methods – I’m hoping so, sure feels like it.
To have known real love and what it means to me (even though that might change over the decades of my life) – check, check, check!
To be excited about the coming decade – abso-fucking-lutely
To have no regrets – well, I’ve decided that’s a big ol’ cliche and a very bad song and I must admit that I’ve plenty of regrets. Ah well!
To have either a sense of direction (which can be temporary or winding orever-changing) or else be happy without one – I’m currently failing at this.
To be both satisfied with who I am and determined to become more who I wish to be – err, check. I think.
To maintain a sense of loving life even though it’s shit sometimes – wholeheartedly check.
So, there we go – I found some goals I’ve failed to reach, and some I’ve successfully achieved. Marvellous! I guess that makes me well and truly thirty 🙂
I’m a 30-something writer, artist, tarot reader, and perpetual explorer of the space between thought, feeling, and action.
I believe that spirituality and ritual are for everybody. I’m about the journey, in all of its messy, non-linear, chaotic iterations. I am excited by anticapitalist business and living with my whole entire self present. I use tarot cards to bring forth hidden truth, and ritual to affirm my commitment, over and over, to my ever-shifting path.
Loving those goals ;D Glad you’re well on the way with most of them, and as for the rest, hey, it’d be boring if you were already completely sorted, right? Nothing to live for if there are no challenges.