Thirty

That used to be an ominous word.  All the way up until I became that word.

It still surprises me that each year my birthday is like any other day. I don’t feel different. I don’t feel older. In fact, I feel the same.

When I was a little kid I thought that anyone who was over the age of 14 was old–not in a bad way–but in a way that I wanted to emulate. When I was 14 I thought anyone over the age of 21  had their shit together. Then I went to college and saw how wrong that was. I still look back and just shake my head at the immaturity.

I recently took the Mental Age Test and got a 34. Cool, I thought. I’m catching up with my mental age. I took it today and I got 40. HOLD YOUR HORSES THERE, INTERWEBS. I can only take one age-relate milestone a decade! But 40 now doesn’t even seem old to me. Isn’t it strange how your perception changes? 40 seemed like it was the end of the world to me when I was in high school. Now it just seems like an age where you have everything going for you. The last big birthday I had was 25 where I thought being a quarter of a century old was huge. Now? That honestly seems like it was yesterday.

It was a little bittersweet leaving my 20s behind on Sunday. But, I didn’t feel different. We had tons of wine, sangrias, margaritas, and other hard liquor. We danced til 2am (now THAT hurt). I blew out 24 candles on my homemade tres leches cake. Why 24? My husband wanted me to blow out a million candles at once but the pack only had 24! Joke was on him though when I blew them out in one try.

Is this what they mean by “I don’t feel my age?” If it does, then I still feel as youthful as a 21 year old. But wiser. Thank goodness for that. But I will tell you what’s different. I much rather stay in at night in my pajamas with a bottle glass of wine. If that makes me boring, well give me a sash and a crown because I’ll wear those damn things to bed.

And if this is what 30 looks like, I’ll gladly take it. 30, bring it on.