30 Things You Find Yourself Thinking When You Turn 30

I know, I know… I shouldn’t be treating 30 like it’s ‘old’ because guess what? It’s not. I could say something cliche like “30 is the new 40” but instead I’ll just say this: so you’re 30, 31, 32, 35, etc. you still have time to figure it out, find someone, go on some adventures, and discover what you want to do. Some of us have ‘got it all together’ by the time we are 30: started families, have great careers, own a house, and all the traditional milestones society associates with success, while others sure have not. There should be less pressure regarding expected timelines at certain ages when it comes to doing what’s best for our own futures rather than falling into a model of bench marks and the age by which we should reach them.

On a somewhat contrary note to my point, here is a list of thoughts you might find yourself thinking when you turn 30.

Not all of them apply to myself, while some of them certainly do. Many of them, I’m sure, are only amplified with age, but 30 is a year when you realize, time goes by and things change…quickly.

1. How the h*ll is this song 10 years old?!

Although I wasn’t a huge fan of it, the song ‘We found Love’ by Rihanna and Calvin Harris came on the radio the other day, and I remembered my roommate from university singing it around the house and in the shower. I thought, wow this must be a few years old by now, and I looked up the release date and it was 2011. It’s now 2022. How is it 10 years old? In fact, all those pop-house hybrid songs with Avicii and David Guetta like “Levels” and “Sexy Bitch” are over a decade old too. The most scary thing is, these are from the soundtracks of my university days, meaning that was a decade ago too.

2. I have't seen my best friend in more than 6 years

Following university, I tried to see my close friends now and then for the first few years after graduation. Same with Carolyn and Breanna, the girls who I couldn’t separate from during my summer internships in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. What seemed like only a couple of years ago since seeing these girls, turns out it is actually 5 or 6 years. It seems the older you get, the longer the gap goes without seeing your friends, and the shorter the time seems.

3. It’s been years since I’ve been dancing at a nightclub

Other than dancing at Casa en el Agua, the hostel in Colombia I worked at in 2019, when I was 27, and the nightclub in the Pink Palace, the hostel I worked at in Greece in 2017, when I was 25, I think the last dance floor I danced on was somewhere in Toronto at a techno nightclub. What was dancing every weekend from the summer of 2016 until I left for Greece in June 2017, turned into a summer working at a party hostel, followed by the rest of my life not going out clubbing at all.

I remember when I returned home at the end of the summer in 2017, I feel into a pattern of quieter weekends spent with a small group of people at their houses. The thought of actually getting dressed up and going out just felt like too much effort. Then the next summer I met Brendan, a guy who had never danced on a dance floor, and hated going out to nightclubs.

Of course, in 2020, dancing at nightclubs wasn’t an option for anyone due to the pandemic. Now that festivals and nightclubs are finally a thing again, I do admit I miss them, and would love to go dancing. But after turning 30, I realize I’d be older than most of the crowd. Still, if you’re 30+ and want to go dancing or to a festival with me this summer, I’m in (at least I think I am).

4. I’m not the cook I thought I’d be

Do you know how much it costs to purchase all the ingredients listed in those magazine recipes which you wish you could cook? It’s not like I’m against cooking. In fact, I’d love nothing more than to cook for my husband and be a glamorous 1950s housewife. On the other hand, if you’re career-focused and would like to cook for the art of cooking, you are going to run into the same problem: with the rising price of everything, easy ‘throw in the oven’ meals, TV dinners, and fast food options are so much cheaper.

Even if you set yourself up with a solid spice rack and a pantry full of common ingredients, to purchase fresh meat and produce to prepare an actual meal will likely cost you the same as getting take-out from a mid-price-range restaurant. I buy pretty much the same groceries each week for two people, and the price just keeps going up. To add anything else to my grocery bill for a possible failed attempt at cooking a meal certainly isn’t in the budget. I didn’t expect that when I turned 30, the price of groceries would be so high that it would impact my ability to cook.

5. Will I ever be out of debt?

Did you ever think you’d have money in your thirties? My friend from university and I were talking recently, and even though her and her partner both make good money, taking on a home reno project and welcoming a new baby have certainly destroyed their hope of actually ‘having money’ in their early thirties. Here my husband and I are, still renting, paying off loans, and driving my Dad’s car, and we are a long way off being of being self-sustainable. Do people just add babies to their list of credit card expenses?

But hey, if you made it through university, grad school, or got into a good profession that puts you in the ‘sunshine club’ and you don’t have these problems, or aren't feeling the burn of inflation, props to you.

6. I’m realistically never going to fit into those skinny jeans again

I recently went through my closet to purge a bunch of clothes I know I won’t ever wear again. Just a few years ago, a size 5 skinny jeans was almost too big for me, but now, I’m lucky if I get into a size 7. I had a couple of brand-new pairs of skinny jeans I’d been keeping in my closet, hoping that I’d be able to fit into them again by making small changes to my diet while still being ‘healthy’ so I could shed the extra 10+ pounds I gained when I moved out with my boyfriend (now husband). Well, three years later and although the jeans button up, there’s no way I could make it through the day, or even a couple of hours, without being desperate to take them off. Leggings are always a more comfortable choice, but if I want to dress up and wear jeans, it’s time to give those size 5s away and opt for a relaxed-fit size 7.

7. How was that 9 years ago?!

I love Facebook Memories ‘On this day’ because they show exactly what I posted ‘on this day’ a year ago, two years ago, nine years ago….while it is nice to recall memories, think about old friends, or perhaps laugh at my embarrassing old self and appreciate how much I’ve grown, it’s a sour reminder of how quickly years have flown by and how fast those years faded in the blink of an eye. Between the years of 2006, when I first created my Facebook account, and 2019, when I moved out with Brendan, for me, each year was so different and unpredictable. From high school, to university, to spending summers in Milwaukee, then all the places I lived and visited after graduation up until May 2019, no two years were alike.

When I moved out with Brendan , it’s like time stood still with this new sense of stability, yet years passed without realizing it. Now, I see a memory of myself all dolled up with my university roommates ready to go out in London, and I see ‘On this Day 9 Years Ago’ and it’s one of the last of the pictures from my final year in university. My Mum always told me when I was growing up that as you get older, time goes by faster.

8. Within a few years, I might have kids

Many of my peers jumped on the having kids thing years before they turned 30. However, for many of us, when you’re in your twenties, you have plenty of time before you need to decide whether or not to pursue having a family. When you turn 30, suddenly you realize there’s only a few years left before it biologically becomes much harder; and if it’s going to be hard to begin with, you’d better start sorting yourself out and fixing bad habits, pronto. Of course, women can have their first child over 40 naturally, but many may need to pay thousands of dollars for fertility treatments, especially IVF. So it starts to sink in that within the next few years, if you’re able to have children, you’ll have them… and that’s a little terrifying.

9. There’s absolutely noting exciting about dating

Fortunately, I found my husband - started dating him at 26, and married him at 28 - and I’m confident I won’t be back in the dating game for the foreseeable future. But after hearing stories from my single friends, it’s just as expected: when you’re over 30, dating is more of a painful chore than uplifting or exciting. Your options are limited, many candidates come with a lot of baggage, and after 12+ years of dating and relationships, you’ve likely had enough of it. I spent pretty much my whole teens and adulthood being single and had way too many first to third dates to know that at this point, nothing about dating would be enjoyable, especially with far less fish in the sea.

10. What happened to my metabolism?

You hear it all the time from those older than you that your metabolism slows down and it gets harder to lose weight as you get older. I’ve always struggled with my weight, but in the past couple of years leading up to 30, I see that making changes to my diet and increasing my cardio have significantly less of an impact in my weight than when I was younger.

I used to shake my head in disbelief that these ‘older’ people who complained about it being harder to lose weight used age as an excuse for being lazy or not committing to a diet… but now I’m starting to see their point. If I’m eating this little now, by the time I’m 40, am I going to have to survive off of spinach and celery soup in order to maintain, let alone drop any weight?

Keep a look out for the next ten of my '30 things you find yourself thinking when you turn 30'.

30 Things You Find Yourself Thinking When You Turn 30 - Part 1