Thirty hurt a lot. My husband bought us a bottle of Dom though and it seemed to ease the pain.
Thirty didn’t bother me at all. But for some reason, 37 freaked me out - as if I suddenly realized that I was really an adult!!
40 and 45 didn’t bother me either, nor does the impending 50. However, the aforementioned mileage is pretty well kicking my butt! Then there’s the gravity issue… <sigh>
Don’t sweat it, jarbaby - look for the pony instead of the pile of manure. (how’s that for profound advice?!?)
I turned 30 last year. Big friggin’ deal. if it bothers you, folks, just start counting in base 11 and give yourself three more years. But I know quite a few people who claim their 30s were the best years of their lives.
Jarbabyj I can understand wanting to get rid of your anxiety problems, but if you want to write erotica or have a crush on Brian Urlacher, what’s wrong with that? You can’t avoid turning 30, but you can certainly avoid becoming a boring old sourpuss. My grandmother has a crush on Shawn Green, and she turned 30 when Harry Truman was President.
30 was a piece of cake, and I’m very much looking forward to 40. I’m not so much looking forward to when I stop having birthdays.
Gail Sheehy (author of Passages) put forth a pretty convincing argument for adolescence lasting up to 30 now, given the long time spent on education and being supported by the parents in Western societies. I think she may be on to something.
Well I for one am not particularly looking forward to turning 30 in a couple months. I don’t care what anyone says, getting older sucks:
-
Women get less attractive - wrinkles, weight gain, saggy ass/boobs, etc. (I know the same thing happens to men but I don’t date men so who cares…except…)
-
I have to start watching what I eat - even though I am naturally thin, I find that I can’t burn off the donuts as fast as I used to.
-
It becomes less “appropriate” to bang hot 20-somthing girls
-
I have less of a sense of “preparing for a rewarding career” and more of a sense of “this is the crappy job you will have for the rest of your life”.
-
More responsibility - Work, wife, kids, mortgage, does not look very appealing
-
Wardrobe shifts from cool, hip clothing to dull business casual clothes
-
Anoying “biological clock” conversations
-
Have to worry about age related ailments
-
Physically unable to party as hard
-
Less actually doing fun things and more “remember when we used to do…”
Hey, I don’t care how great you say it is to be 30, 40 or even 50. Wouldn’t rather have the body of a 24 year old?
I think 30 hits women harder because your beauty definitely starts to fade. Geraldo Rivera was on Howard Stern the other day and he said, “When you’re a young woman in your twenties, being gorgeous is your JOB.”
The reason I need to stop all this crap of being in the moshpits at concerts and being at backstage parties, writing porn, day dreaming about Vin Diesel and all that is because I’m GOING TO BE THIRTY.
Thirty year olds don’t do that. At some point I’ve got to grow up and be an appropriate mother (maybe that’s why god won’t let me get pregnant), an appropriate business woman. I’ve got to be an adult sometime, and I guess thirty is the year.
I mean, women with jobs and families in their thirties don’t go to Megadeth concerts, you know?
J
Jar, I’ve seen 40 year old mothers with their children at something as sedate as a Type O Negative concert. Don’t sweat it, you can do whatever the hell you want. YOU decide what’s “appropriate” in your life, not society.
Women in their thirties can do whatever they want to do.
Being an adult doesn’t mean giving up the things you love; it means learning to love more things. Sure, sometimes it means realizing that some of the stuff you liked when you were younger isn’t as much fun anymore, because it was actually kinda dumb. But… giving up something just because you’re a certain age? Because mature people don’t do that? Because, god forbid, it’s unseemly? That’s not adulthood. That’s cowardice.
Don’t let the people who are too afraid to do what they love intimidate you into giving up the stuff you love, too. Just because they’re too timid to go out and headbang doesn’t mean you have to give it up. Living by what the neighbors might think is a sure ticket to a bitter, repressed old age. Live for what you love instead, and the world will love you back for it.
Who do you want to be? What do you really want to be like? Do you want your children to grow up with a “what will the neighbors think” kind of mother, or a “wow, mom’s pretty cool” mother? Do you want an old age of Bingo and gossip, or an eccentric, stylish, devil-may-care dotage?
Please, please don’t change yourself just because of an arbitrary number. Change if you want to, if you really feel like it, but don’t do it because of the facile judgements of others. The people who love you, love you because of all the things you do, however childlike, however strange. Don’t take that away from them, just because it seems like the right thing to do.
There are no rules for growing older. There’s just you, and how you are, and finding a way to live happily. You’re too good, too brilliant, too bright a star to lock away in the cramped box of other people’s misguided expectations.
Happy birthday.
Change that attitude young lady. When your kid starts bringing his/her friends over you want to be remembered as the ‘coolest’ mom there is and you can’t do that by sitting in the rocking chair knitting. I really haven’t had a birthday yet that I’ve had a problem with, but in four years, when I turn 50, I think that it will bother me a bit. The one good thing that I can say is that as you age things don’t bother you as much, at least not the petty things that used to push your button. You start pushing away from the material things and go more for friendships, love and people than when you were younger. You start to realize that you’ve lived more of your life than you have left and priorities start to change.
You are a great person, just the way you are, measure your life by the relationships you have and the love you share, other things will fall in place, and the ones that don’t won’t matter as much in years to come.
Happy birthday!
ALRIGHT ALRIGHT!
:: jarbaby runs out, shoots up heroin, has bisexual affairs, becomes a dominatrix, poses naked for “Black Tail”, shaves her head and starts hunting Elk ::
WOO HOOO!!!
:: she runs off madly::
I’m glad I’m not the only one who was bothered by turning 25. It was like, “I’m not in my early 20s any more! Oh, no!” No longer was I in the 18-24 age demographic.
My 30th isn’t for another 16 months, but I don’t think it’ll bother me at all. I think it’ll bother my parents more (“Oh my God, I have a thirty-year-old child!”)
Don’t let them fool you Jar. As soon as you hit 30 that crystal on your palm will change color, and you’ll be hunted down. If you can make it to old Washington D.C. and find the other escapees, then reveal the elders who actually run the world and let everybody know the world outside the city is safe, you might just be okay.
Don’t let them fool you Jar. As soon as you hit 30 that crystal on your palm will change color, and you’ll be hunted down. If you can make it to old Washington D.C. and find the other escapees, then reveal the elders who actually run the world and let everybody know the world outside the city is safe, you might just be okay.
What a load of bullshit.
What law, pray tell, says you can’t do these things when you’re 30 but can when you’re 29? I mean, you don’t seriously believe such nonsense, do you? Where is this amazing rule written down? Please, show me the Rulebook Of Age-Appropriate Behaviour, because I seem to have missed that title at the bookstore.
Bullshit. What, mothers and businesswomen can’t have crushes or write porn stories? Why not? Give me one good reason. I’m glad my wife didn’t stop being fun when she became an adult, let me tell you, and I’m sure she’s glad I didn’t become Mr. Boring. As long as you’re planning to stop having any fun in life, gosh, why not just wear sackcloth and ashes, join a convent, and spend all day chewing tinfoil?
If you want to know how to handle turning 30, maybe you should start by throwing away all this weird, cliched “I have to be an adult now” malarkey. Just have some cake, enjoy the presents, and keep doing what you’re doing. What you need to realize is that you ARE an adult now, all your quirks and all. You have apparently not quite come to the realization that being an adult does not mean you magically become serious and mature one day. Being an adult includes having immature little hobbies, crushes on celebrities, and being worried you aren’t serious and mature enough. The secret is to realize that’s normal.
Why can’t they? I see no reason whatsoever.
If you actually start changing yourself by stopping doing what you like to do, you’ll be making a horrible, dreadful mistake that you absolutely, unquestionably will end up regretting. Here is your action plan for your 30th birthday:
-
Drop lots of hints about what you want. Make sure you ask for at least a few fun presents. (I’m turning 31 in November and I want at least one XBox game.)
-
Have fun on your birthday. Eat a slice of cake, have fun with your family, open presents. Tear the wrapping paper off really violently.
-
The next day, just keep on living your life the way you were the previous month.
Rickjay is right. If you enjoy going to Megadeth concerts, go. Write porn. That’s sexy. Just don’t stop having fun.
30 is just a number. I’m 38 and I still love comic books, and cartoons.
I guess I just took it really hard when I went out to eat with my boss and his wife, and my husband and I talked about how we’d gone sledding with a group of friends.
My boss’ wife, who’s really nice and fun said,
“You don’t have any kids…why in the world would you go sledding? That’s sort of odd.”
I guess I’m just odd.
I turned 30 at the time the damn hippies were saying not to trust anyone over 30. It bothered me. Since then I’ve had no trouble with 40, 50 or 60.
[sup]The moral of this story is don’t let any asshole ruin your day![/sup]
Your boss’s wife is weird. A couple of years ago, my wife’s best friend was in town over Christmas, and we all went up to the pass with our plastic saucers and had a grand old time. No kids in sight. If she has hangups about what she’s “allowed” to do for fun at her age, well, that’s just too sad for her.
Regarding porn, celebrity crushes, and all that: Get over it. You like what you like. If somebody judges you for it, that’s their problem, not yours. Period. My wife just had her thirty-mumble-mumble-th, and she’s currently got a “thing” for Giles on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I hold up my end, too: I think Robia LaMorte, who plays Ms. Callendar, is unbelievably hot.
Don’t accept other people’s standards for how you should live your life. As long as you’re reasonably happy in yourself, nothing else matters. Externally-based judgementalism is the Mind Killer.
(Hey, if Logan’s Run is kosher, then Dune is fair game.)
I kept expecting to feel the angst on my 30th birthday, as most women on TV do, but I honestly didn’t care.
I’m turning 31 next month, and I can say that so far, it doesn’t faze me a bit. However, I am convinced that this is because I am VERY IMMATURE for my age. I’m one of those girls with a squeaky voice, same general appearance since I was two, wants the complete set of old beavis and Butthead episodes for my 31st, etc.
Pathetic? Maybe. On the upside, I have managed to purchase a home all by my lonesome, find an unbelievable relationship that I never dreamed possible, look and feel better than I probably ever have, and retain and improve upon this strange, self-absorbed, no doubt delusional notion I have that I’m just peachy, as people go.
There is a biological situation that needs to be factored in. At this point, as my SO so eloquently puts it, he will “knock me up by the time we’re back from the honeymoon”
:rolleyes: (all romance, I know!), so that we can take advantage of optimal fertility before advanced maternal age sets in at 35.
Of course, someone will always come along with the “my cousin’s brother’s wife’s defense”, in which they claim that any studies suggesting that fertility may decline after a certain age MUST be bunk because “so-and-so” was able to have a healthy baby at age 73, or whatever, but assuming that that we are all sane and able to deal with possible realities, even if they’re not what we want to hear, then I think we’ll all be fine, gorgeous, talented, and delightfully childlike 30-somethings and/or Moms.
Happy Birthday , Jarbaby!
I found turning thirty to be a milestone as well. Since my husband is over 2 years younger than me, it was strange turning thirty when he was still in his twenties.
I must admit, I did, at the time, think I’d have it more together at 30 than I did. In fact, I’m still waiting for my ‘life’ to fall into place the way I want it to. What will I do when it finally does!
WRT to the parenting thing and age: For me (yes, this is just how it worked for me), I am glad I waited to have children until I was 31. I gave birth to my daughter at age 31 and I’m glad we waited. I feel like I’ve done all the adventure/travelling/partying/craziness so that I don’t regret not having done these things when I realize I’ve only been out alone with my husband alone on four occasions since our daughter’s birth (she’s now 2 yrs and 2mos old).
All the things you’ve done with your life bring you to where you are now. It’s a great thing to have the wisdom of those years. Now, if I could just figure out how to have the wisdom of a 33 year old (me) and the body of a 22 year old, I’d be all set!