The New 30

I'm turning 31 today.  It's a pretty anticlimactic milestone in the grand scheme of birthdays, but last year I was too distracted by my 9-day-old baby to realize I had turned 30.  I was too sleep deprived to hear the death knell and too brain-dead to remember to say goodbye to the best years of my life.  After all, that's what our twenties were supposed to be, right?  The years in which we are supposed to be our most attractive, have our most fun, finish school, start our careers, find our perfect mate, and have our first of 1.9 children?  By 30, we are supposed to have our shit together.  Isn't that what we used to think?  Sort of a tall order for one decade (especially when the first few years *or maybe half the decade, ahem* is generally spent under a waterfall of jager)...but that was the goal for many women I know until even their 29th birthdays (this will be MY year, dammit!)  But then...30 hit, and a strange thing happened.  The plan had gone awry.  Many of my girl friends (most, actually) found themselves celebrating their birthdays without sparkly somethings on their ring fingers or perfectly round burgeoning baby bellies.  What happened to the plan?  Well, make no mistake about it, these are not women who don't have their shit together.  They have finished college and many graduate school, they have flourished in professional careers, they have made themselves financially independent (and even downright well-off), they have fascinating hobbies and are involved in charitable organizations.  They are still searching for that right someone, sure, but not just someone who will neatly fit into the 30-year-old plan, instead someone who will respect them, their career choices, and can fit into their busy and full lives.  They may or may not want children and they have realized that they still have time (gasp!) to make that choice.  Even many of the women I know who were married before 30 waited to have children until later, instead focusing on their careers, their selves and building a life with their spouses that will (hopefully) stand the test of children.  Many of the ones with children (and many without) are already considering career changes, or are choosing to stay home full-time with their kids.  It seems that today's average 30 year-old woman is vastly different than the 30 year-old we pictured when we were younger, isn't she? 

Somehow I managed to get married at 27 and have my first child 9 days before I turned 30 (phew, I just made the deadline! :)).   But only because I got lucky and found my perfect someone in college, and we still dated 9 years before getting married.  During those 9 years, I put myself through law school, was well into my career and Adam worked for years, and then began law school himself.  It was after all of that, and even after buying a home, that we began picking out wedding china.  Not the model I probably would have imagined years before, but the one that allowed each of us to get our shit together on our own.  It seems to me like the modern path is to get yourself straight by 30 and then (should you choose to) get married and (should you choose to) have a kid sometime by 35 or even 40.  As our life ambition increases, it is extremely common and perfectly acceptable (I only use that word because 10 years ago I don't think it was the case) to be on this new path.  And though our biological clocks might make you move fast with kids if you want them (but probably not as fast as you think), you will be a far better parent for having waited until you were ready and with the right person.  It's worth waiting for.

As I look forward to my 32nd year today, I'm not most proud of the fact that I married the best guy in the world and am raising the sweetest little boy...these were wonderful blessings that came to me when they were meant to come.  They were gifts, not end-goals.  But I AM proud that at this moment in time, I feel like I have my shit together...now that is a real accomplishment.