On Turning 30...

Okay, so it wasn't that traumatic (turning 25 - aka a quarter of a century - was, though).

I was actually looking forward to turning 30. I had even been claiming it as my age months before it was official.

Don't get me wrong, my 20s were good to me. In fact, they were a blast for the most part, and I might even relive them without being paid to do so, but I wasn't sad to see them go.

When you're in your 20s, even the latter years of the decade, I think people sometimes still see you as the fresh-out-of-college, party-all-night kid, who is pretending to be an adult (despite the fact that you're usually asleep before 11). As a thirty-something, you're not considered old, but the higher digit out front seems to be equated with maturity in most people's minds. And I'm okay with being taken more seriously in some venues of my life, even if that means having to trade deeper lines in my face and a few more gray hairs for it.

I think about the age-old question that people always ask, "Where do you see yourself in X number of years?" If you asked me if I'm where I thought I'd be at 30, I'd have to say that I honestly had no idea. My life plans changed so many times in my early 20s that I think I eventually gave up on the "life plan." That's not to say that I don't have dreams or goals or direction. But I no longer try to plan everything out the way I did when I was younger (I was that eighth-grade kid who had all four years of high school classes mapped out well before meeting with the guidance counselor). All I know is that I am HERE (like the red dot on the mall directory), and HERE is a happy place to be.

So to Thirty, I say... Hello. And welcome.