Today is my thirtieth birthday. At 8:15PM I will officially leave my twenties and move into a new decade that starts at thirty. The big 3-0. You know what? I’m totally fine with it.
Today I Am Thirty
…And I’m learning to love myself.
I’ve spent a lot of my life hating my body. That’s what we big girls are taught to do. We’re taught to hate the fat we carry, the skin that sags a little, and every other little imperfection we’ve developed over the years. Society tries to tell us if we’re not tall, thin, perfectly toned, tanned, and #flawless, that there’s nothing to love about ourselves. That we should hide the things that are deemed unattractive, and we should spend our time berating ourselves for each extra pound and doing nothing but striving to fit the mold they want us in.
Today I Am Thirty
…And I’m facing my fears.
The idea of doing a photo shoot terrified me. I don’t like the way I look in photos, other than selfies where I know I can get the right angle, but it was something I’d told myself I had to do for so long. When I booked the appointment in January I told myself I had a good three or so months to workout and get in shape. With the stress of school and everything else, I didn’t. I’ve lost a few pounds, but nothing noticeable, and so the idea of canceling my shoot definitely crossed my mind.
Today I Am Thirty
…And I will live as brightly as possible.
I’ve been asked so many times “why did you dye your hair purple?” and aside from the obvious “because I could” answer, I keep saying that if I’m going to turn thirty, why not do so with purple hair? It turns out that dying my hair purple is one of my favorite things I’ve ever done. I LOVE it. It’s beautiful, and I think it quite suits me.
Today I Am Thirty
…And I’m feeling strong and independent.
Somehow in the last year of my twenties I did all of the things I said I probably couldn’t do until I had a partner. I bought a house all on my own and I adopted a dog. I’ve been rocking it on my own, and showing not only myself but others that you don’t have to rely on a man, or on anyone really, to get the things you want.
Today I Am Thirty
…And I’m finally learning how to be loved in the right way.
I’d honestly started thinking that I would never find someone who wanted the same things as me and who loved me the same way I loved them. I spent the majority of my twenties chasing after the wrong men. Men who didn’t want commitment, or who wanted to be polyamorous, or who were too broken to know what they did or didn’t want.
Then, just a month shy of my thirtieth birthday I met a guy who DOES want the same things as me and who also loves me just as much as I love him. He looks at me like I’m the sun, he loves my dog in spite of Bub’s first introductory face-bite, and he spent my birthday weekend trying to make me feel like the most important and spoiled woman around. He made this birthday the best by far, and I’m looking forward to many more with him by my side.
Today I Am Thirty
…And I am so excited for this upcoming journey.
People say that your thirties are the new twenties, but what it seems like is like your twenties… But with everything figured out. Your twenties are for experimentation, figuring out what you want, and making a hell of a lot of mistakes. It’s like you drew yourself a map when you were 18 or 19, and now that map is covered with all sorts of scribbled out lines and new paths, and it’s worn from all the times you’ve folded and unfolded it and re-edited the plan.
Your thirties are for the person you’ve become after all of that exploration. It’s for living the life you have decided to have or work towards. It’s for achieving the things you’ve set your mind to, actually working down the path you’ve newly drawn out on a freshly printed map. I’m so excited for a steadier pace, and a whole lot of new adventures taken with a whole decade of wisdom behind me.
