On becoming thirty before my time

On my birthday I really identified with this song - Life by Muthoni DQ - because in it she sings that life is what you make it.

                           

Life is plagued by controversies, some of which have no chance of being solved in this lifetime. Take the point at which life begins, for instance. Some believe that life begins way before conception, while others believe it begins anywhere between conception and childbirth depending on when they choose to terminate it. As if that were not confounding enough, another brigade insists that life begins after 40, making the problem even harder to solve.

It may not be clear when exactly life begins, but it is clear that age eventually catches up with you. Just the other day I was an impressionable teenager, with little regard for age,  glossing over women's magazines in which the writers went on and on about turning thirty. The big "three oh" - as they liked to call it - was said to be the dreaded age, when a woman began to kiss youth goodbye and to look back on the past with regret at having achieved nothing. No husband, no baby, biological clock ticking and a myriad of other worries about the things that one should have checked off the list by then. Even if the newly-turned-thirty-year-old had an enviable position at one of those blue chip companies, she still had reason to panic if at all she hadn't collected those things that society considers more important.

My mother's friend once mentioned, in passing, how turning thirty is a magical moment in a woman's life because by then, one has formed an identity and can move forward to the next phase of life without hangups.That made me flash back to the day I turned 26. For the longest time I had been fighting off people who insisted on labeling me young. On one hand the remnant influences from the women's magazines had me thinking that I needed to follow a fixed timeline and achieve certain milestones to avoid being one of those miserable women who'd just turned thirty and realised that they had run out of time. On the other hand, every time I expressed my fears that I would usher in thirty with as many cats and no man or baby to speak of, an older person would ask me how old I was and when I said 20-something, they laughed it off and told me not to worry: that I was still young. Towards the end of my 25th year of living, it dawned on me that I really was young. Then I turned 26 and suddenly felt old and unaccomplished. My heart raced as I panicked about not having enough time to do all the things I should do before I hit the third decade of life. I was turning into the miserable 30-year-old at only 26. But that phase did not last long, and I soon moved into the comfortable mid to late twenties. No pressure.

I am a few paces away from thirty, and this year I have had snippets of revelation of what awaits me at the golden age. I am no longer afraid. I am not looking forward to it (who wants to grow old?) but I know I'll feel at peace when I get there (God willing). But before then, I like the things I have seen about turning thirty.

And here they are:

Thirty is beautiful...

• You are no longer trying to keep up with the Joneses. You realise that your path is different from everyone else's. You run your race knowing that you are not competing with anyone nor can you accurately be compared with anyone because your circumstances are different. This results in a quiet, calm confidence that makes your journey easier.

• By 30 your search for an identity is over. You are no longer that confused woman who is all over the place. Instead you have a self-assurance that comes from knowing your strengths and weaknesses. 

• You do what you want without seeking anyone's approval. You couldn't care less what busybodies think about you because you are self-confident and you are not trying to please anybody.

• At thirty, you refuse to take things personally. When people do things it's about them. Some people are just weird and you won't spend your time boiling over on their account.

• You realise that not everyone can do the things you do so effortlessly and you try to develop some patience.

• You know there is no space for excuses in this life, no place for blame games. At thirty you take full responsibility - if something was to be done, you do it and if you don't, you take responsibility without trying to pass the buck.

• The best thing about being thirty is the freedom to say no to anybody without regrets, and to laugh at the weak attempts of people who want to use emotional blackmail to make you change your mind.

This quote by Maya Angelou summarises my pre-thirtieth birthday thought:

"Most people don’t grow up. It’s too damn difficult. What happens is most people get older. That’s the truth of it. They honor their credit cards, they find parking spaces, they marry, they have the nerve to have children, but they don’t grow up. Not really. They get older. But to grow up costs the earth, the earth. It means you take responsibility for the time you take up, for the space you occupy. It’s serious business. And you find out what it costs us to love and to lose, to dare and to fail. And maybe even more, to succeed. What it costs, in truth. Not superficial costs—anybody can have that—I mean in truth."