Write on: Just a number

“How old do you feel?”

I was visiting my hometown for the weekend, sitting with a group of my best friends from college when my friend Elizabeth asked us this.

“Well,” our friend Andres said, taking her question literally. “I’m 29.”

“No, I know how old you are,” Elizabeth said, rolling her eyes. “But what age do you feel?”

This is what happens when you get together a bunch of people who have either just turned or are about to turn 30. These were the friends I’d had since 18. The ones I used to drink and dance and tailgate with, who I’d binge The Office with, gossip with until 4 a.m.

But finding ourselves on the precipice of a new decade turned our conversations serious fast. Things, it seemed, were getting real.

We all had different responses. Some said we felt like we were still in college; others in grade school. One person said he’s always felt older than his age, like he was in his 40s. None of us said we felt 30.

I knew my answer right away, because I’d been thinking about it a lot already. I felt like a perpetual high school freshman, about to start a new school where no one knew me yet. The possibilities of who I might become were endless. Britney Spears’ “Not A Girl / Not Yet A Woman” was playing on the radio on that first day, and I couldn’t relate more. I didn’t know then how my life would be shaped by so many firsts: riding the school bus daily, wearing mascara, taking college-level classes, learning to drive. Getting a cell phone, overplucking my eyebrows, chatting on AIM with boys.

It’s bizarre that these experiences were so long ago, because I honestly feel like they were just yesterday. That night-before-the-first-day-of-school feeling, loaded up on school supplies and nerves—I remember it vividly.

Maybe I will feel this way until the day I have my own kids and I make memories of their first days of school. Until then, I will never believe that first day of high school was half my lifetime ago. I’m in awe of how quickly and slowly time seems to be moving.

I read something last year that I loved: Everyone knows your 30s are better than your 20s—except 29-year-olds. I know we all react differently to turning the big 3-0. I have friends who were thrilled to finally be taken seriously. I struggled. My birthday felt like a personal doomsday—the end of my youth as I knew it.

This is an under-discussed side effect of being a millennial, I think. All of the articles and stereotypes about our generation—we’re defined as the generation incapable of growing up. And all those New York Times and Huffington Post think pieces do nothing except feed our Peter Pan syndromes.

Being young has been part of my identity my whole life. So approaching the milestone age that I’ve always associated with real adulthood? Felt like losing part of who I am.

On the eve of my 30th birthday, I felt unbelievably unprepared for life. Instead of thinking about my accomplishments and the wonderful life I’d led, all I could think about were the things I hadn’t done. All the stuff you’d expect—no house or babies or significant retirement savings. All those lists of places you should have traveled to and wardrobe items you should have upgraded by 30 got to me, too.

What really pushed me over the edge was moisturizer. On my last night as a 29-year-old, all I could think was, “Why, why, why don’t I have a skincare routine?!” Fired from my own life, I should be.

The morning of my birthday, I opened a card from my fiance. His note made my heart fuller than ever.

“I know 30 is a big year for you and you have been dreading it,” he wrote. “But let me tell you: You are the epitome of youth.” He’d underlined “youth” three times.

I’m now 10 months into my 30s. I wish I could say the 30s-are-better-than-your-20s wisdom has set in. It hasn’t, although I’m sure I’ll get there.

But that morning, his words were the reassurance I needed. A page of the calendar was turning, but my whole world wasn’t going to change.

The rest of the card said many other nice, beautiful things. But at that moment, I couldn’t read them. My eyes were too full of tears.

This article was originally published in the October 2018 issue of 225 Magazine.