Nearly a Grandma

Welp. It’s finally here. The big one. The big “three-oh”, the age that media has taught me means I’m old, and society has marked as the beginning of the end. 

Guys help, I’m thirty.

When I was younger, there was this movie, 13 Going on 30. Thirteen year old Jenna wishes to be “thirty, flirty and thriving” and finds herself transported to the future. I loved that movie. I wanted a glamorous life, a handsome boyfriend who had been my best friend for most of my life, a shiny magazine job (fun fact: I started university for journalism. Not because of the movie specifically, though.) As I grew older, I started forming more realistic dreams. Married. Kids planned, but not too soon! Published and on my way to a movie deal. (Stop laughing!) A house and a dog. All that cliche suburbia stuff that girls are supposed to want. Or maybe I’d be a director. I had daydreams of going to studios and important lunches, making film, being glamorous in the California sunshine. 

My life…is more like the part in the movie where Jenna realizes being 30 isn’t as glamorous as she thought it would be. Today is more like the Friends episode “The One Where They All Turn Thirty”. 

Nothing I planned for has happened. That is just how life goes, though. I switched careers and went into VFX. I struggled with depression and un-diagnosed ADHD for years which really killed my writing. My “dreams” of marriage and kids were expectations placed on me by my ex- walking down the aisle in a white dress with everyone staring at me is a nightmare scenario. .And I don’t want my own kids. I’d really like to adopt or foster kids instead. But that’s the life my ex wanted, and I was stupid and swept up with how romantic it was. 

But you know what, that’s okay. I’m pretty okay with where my life is, even if it was nothing like I planned. Sure, I’d love to be out of debt (thanks, student loans!) but otherwise, I’m not too disappointed. I have my cats, I have a permanent contract at my new studio, I have a lovely boyfriend who spent the weekend making me ramen and sushi, and I have good friends. That’s enough.

I guess now I should focus my sights on the next 10 years. I would like to have some normal adult things- a house with a yard and a dog, and some savings. Last year, I actually made a portfolio through my bank, which is the most adult thing I have ever done. My boyfriend and I have a savings plan in place for the next five years, so having those things seems reasonable, especially with the permanent contract.

The most important thing I want to accomplish is to be published. For my fourteenth birthday, my mom got me a copy of Eragon. Christopher Paolini wrote the book when he was sixteen, my mom pointed out. I had two years to get on his level. Sixteen years later, I STILL haven’t finished a writing project. I’m going to work hard to change that this decade. And not because my mother wants me to. This one is a “me goal”, I promise.

Anyway, thirties, here we go!