Three Decades Worth of Thought

For a lot of people, the start of a new year is cause for reflection. You know the drill - regrets, achievements and resolutions all washed down with a thin glass of bubbly. I've never been huge on resolutions, though. Sometimes I consider declaring the upcoming year to be the year I will try to learn more French or I will learn piano. While I may say these things to myself, I never say them out loud to other people. I treat such statements as guidelines or a gee-that-would-be-nice goal. Life is too short to stress out about resolutions made while a stereo blasts Prince in the background and you wear a paper tiara.

But birthdays are another matter. To be completely honest, I've been dreading this year's birthday (30) for over a year. Now, I know what you're thinking, 30 isn't such a big deal! In fact your thirties are the time in your life when you finally come into your own. It's not the number that fills my stomach with dread but rather where I am in life.

Before I moved to Belfast, I thought about what I would do once my year abroad ended. Would I return to L.A.? Would I move to another city? Or would I move back home to S.C. I felt that I had missed too many things in the lives of my sister and brother and that I would welcome a holiday that didn't involve LAX, so I chose to move back to S.C. While I am glad to be near my family, I feel completely like a fish out of water in my hometown. It seems that no one wants to hire a girl from L.A. who worked in the record industry for a time. And they certainly don't want to hire a girl who volunteered for a year for Habitat for Humanity in a country that, to them, doesn't really seem to need a lot of help. This market is too small for event planners and youth marketing specialists and guerilla marketing agencies. It is a round hole and I am a square peg.

In just under two weeks time I will turn 30. I will be living in my brother's old room in my parent's house. I will probably have no new freelance work lined up and, since my temp agency seems to be M.I.A., no temp work on the calendar. My dwindling savings account will continue to dwindle and the maintenance-required light will still be shining in my Civic. I will celebrate without my brother and sister because they are in the habit of doing other things on August 29th.

But honestly, who needs a house of one's own at 30 or a corner office or a picture-perfect family sitting like ducks in a row on the front pew of church? Who needs a BlackBerry bedazzled with crystals or a Polo-clad boyfriend driving a Range Rover? Not me.

No, I will enjoy things they way they are because I know this is exactly where I am supposed to be right now. I am thankful for the opportunity to get to know my parents even better that I could have living 3,000 miles away. I am thankful for the wee bit of freelance work that has come my way. I am glad to be rid of selfish and unkind friends. And I am so very honored for the incredible friends I have scattered across The States and Northern Ireland.

Besides, I hear 30 is the new 19 or something like that.