Why I Don't Mind Turning 30

via

This is one of the many pieces I'll be re-sharing here over the next year. This originally published on Hello Giggles, but since I am not writing for them anymore, it's important to me to have all of my writing in one place. If this is the second time you've seen this, I hope you don't mind too much! Enjoy. 

Today is my 30th birthday, and I can’t even tell you the amount of times I’ve had people make a huge deal out of this shift into a new decade. Nine times out of ten, I hear my peers commiserating over “30," saying it in whispered tones, turning 30 into the Voldemort of birthdays. Growing up I can still remember a friend’s older sister who celebrated her 29th birthday four times, and I have a cousin who to this day won’t recognize the fact that she entered her 30s…in the ’90s.

But why do we have such an aversion to ending our 20s?  What about 30 is so scary?

As for me, my 20s were amazing. Wild. Beautiful, even.  In between all of life’s important moments, the bullet points on the broad timeline of this past decade, there’s been a whole lot of figuring it out – “it” being, you guessed it, life. Now, at the fairly young age of newly-30 I still have a long, long way to go, but I am fairly certain that as my life goes on, I will look back to my 20s as a time of self-discovery. And if that is indeed the case, then I am hoping that my 30s will be a time to enjoy all of the “stuff” I figured out.

I think some people are scared of 30 because it feels like the end of youth, that it’s a distinct marker between being young and getting older. I’ve talked to a few girl friends about it, and some have told me that it’s a birthday that makes them feel not only old, but as if they should be doing something. And more often than not, their something doesn’t exactly match up to their fantasy of what a 30-year old should be doing.

It’s hard trying to measure up when you’ve created an imaginary ruler in your mind. And I think it’s easy to get caught up with dreading birthdays rather than celebrating them. But when you really think about it, is there a more joyous occasion than marking the passing of a year, noting all of its lessons, trials and triumphs, and gearing up for a new one?

As I leave behind my 20s, I’m excited. I don’t mind turning 30, and here’s why:

Like I said above, I loved this past decade. But so much of it was spent trying to find myself, and with that comes a roller-coaster of emotion. During these past 10 years I became an adult. I went away to college and learned more about myself than I could have ever imagined. I dated the wrong guys and figured out exactly the kind of qualities I wanted in a partner. I made new friends, I lost some old ones. I realized that the only constant in this world is change, and sometimes the hardest part of growing up is letting go of relationships that I thought would last forever.  But the silver lining? Realizing that life is all about meaningful connections. And knowing this allows me to keep “quality over quantity” in mind and put time and effort into those who matter, forging strong bonds with just a few people rather than many.

To me, turning 30 is exciting. I know who I am, I know what I want out of life and for the most part, I’ve figured out how to get there. It’s not even about accomplishments; married or not, children or none, career or still figuring it out – it’s about self-realization and being able to say, “Hey, you- I love you!” to that reflection in the mirror. Accepting myself has been the hardest journey of all, and although I’m not there yet, I’m a heck of a lot closer than I was at 21.

And the best part? I’m at a point where I fully realize that I am the master of my own destiny. The maker of my day. The determiner of my future. I’ve grown up and away from blaming others for my mistakes or unhappiness. I’ve learned that I can look to no one else when I fail or succeed. It’s all me. And I now know that it’s futile to try to live up to anyone else’s idea of success or happiness. This is my one life, and I’m sure as hell not going to waste it trying to people-please. Everyone will always have an opinion, but unlike my 20-something self, my 30 year old self now knows to take what others say with a grain of salt. I will never be able to please ‘em all. Each individual in this wide, wide world has an idea of what living this life is to them, and my choices will always, always go against someone’s, somehow.

So as I look back and think about all of the things I’ve learned, I feel lucky that everything I’m taking away from this decade I get to practice in a new one. My 30s are a time for taking care of myself and being healthy.  It’s about enjoying the time I have and savoring every single moment with my loved ones. It’s about being kind.  It’s about looking back at the beautiful naivety of my 20s with humor and acceptance, and realizing that it’s all brought me to this very moment.

And so I welcome in this next decade. I’m excited. Bring out the party hats, the noise makers, put up the streamers and blow up the balloons!  I couldn’t be happier to enter this next chapter, a time that I wholeheartedly believe will be the best yet. And I hope you’ll join me. I’m so over feeling like I should dread each impending birthday, especially this one. I want to celebrate everywhere I’ve been and everywhere I’m going. I want to live this one life of mine- really, really live it- and at the end of my journey I want to look back down the road and feel a sense of pride and accomplishment that I truly did.

So I say bring it on 30, I’m ready for you!

On Being a Mom and Having Tattoos

This is one of the many pieces I'll be re-sharing here over the next year. This originally published on Hello Giggles, but since I am not writing for them anymore, it's important to me to have all of my writing in one place. If this is the second time you've seen this, I hope you don't mind too much! Enjoy. 

If you would have shown my 15-year-old self a photo of me now, I wouldn’t have believed that the girl pictured could really be me. It would have been hard to even imagine; I grew up in an open-minded yet somewhat conservative family and knew hardly anyone with a tattoo. Outside of the one biker friend of my Dad’s who had a rose tattooed on his skull, it was all foreign to me and admittedly, a little scary, too. In high school, I dated a few boys who had artwork on their bodies – one with his last name across his back and another with some sort of tribal etching on his bicep. But that was it. I don’t actually even remember ever seeing a heavily tattooed person in my life before I was 18 or 19. On our senior trip to Mexico the summer after graduating high school, I recall getting truly upset at two of my girl friends for going off and getting tattoos in a random shop on a back street in Puerto Vallarta. Not only was I mad that they could have contracted some sort of disease from the unsanitary conditions but I was appalled that they would do “that” to their bodies.

Well. Since then, I’ve done a lot of “that” to my body and now, at 29, I am what some would call heavily tattooed.

I’ve written about this topic in my own blog before and likened being heavily tattooed to wearing a dress that you just can’t take off. You went to the store, loved the dress, bought the dress and guess what? You will wear that dress for the rest of your life. Others will stop and comment on your dress – maybe they love it, maybe they hate it. But because it’s colorful, different from the norm and so out there, they feel that they have the right to discuss it with you, maybe show you their own and sometimes even touch yours. And you still can’t take it off. Ever. And that’s what it’s like to be heavily tattooed. It’s a part of you wherever you go, a conversation piece and what many people see before they really see you.

And now that I’m a Mom, I’ve gotten so many more questions from my friends, family and even complete strangers about my tattoos. What will you do if Henry wants to get one at a young age? Do other Moms judge you? What happens if your son is embarrassed of them?

It’s funny because these are all things I’ve thought about myself. My husband and I have laughed about the fact that Henry will either think we’re super cool or super lame. And that’s okay. I couldn’t imagine having a Mom that had her arms, chest, legs, etc. tattooed but this is all Henry will know. And because he’s surrounded by our tattooed friends and family most of the time, seeing beautiful colors and pictures on peoples’ skin is completely normal and probably more commonplace to him than seeing skin without it.

And because of this, I do wonder how it will affect our son. I hope if my tattoos do affect him at all, they teach him to be accepting of different kinds of people and to never base his opinion on someone’s looks alone. I wish more kids had that lesson growing up – we’d have a lot less adults who are quick to judge solely based on appearance and stereotypes.

Before I was a Mom, I was a high school English teacher in our small, conservative town. Every day I’d cover up my tattoos with work appropriate clothing and most of my colleagues never knew I had them unless they saw me outside of school. I taught there for almost six years and surprisingly, there were some people I never had the chance to see beyond our classroom walls. Then just the other day I actually ended up running into a group of them while out to eat with my family. Some of the women were shocked when my husband, son and I walked up; I was wearing a strapless dress and my chest piece and sleeve were completely visible. Many of them were in disbelief – “You always seemed so sweet! I never would have guessed you had so many tattoos!” and “I had you pegged all wrong- this is truly a surprise! You always seemed like such a sweet girl.” Because I had always seemed so nice (‘sweet’ seemed to be the adjective of choice), it seemed preposterous to them that underneath my pencil skirts, blouses and cardigans lie this seemingly wild and crazy heathen who must be intent on covering every inch of her skin with ink.

I’m used to people giving me weird looks – sometimes they’re just curious, but sometimes I get some pretty awful glares – and it was very interesting to me to see how these women reacted. They had already known me for years. They knew that I was a hard worker, friendly and a great teacher. They had based their opinion off what they saw everyday but I was suddenly tossing a wrench into their wheel of impressions. I was throwing them off.

We talked a bit more and as I walked away, I realized that I had done something pretty neat back there at that table. I had broken a stereotype and hopefully taught these women that whatever crazy idea they had in their heads of what a tattooed person is supposed to be like was wrong. Hopefully. To be honest, I’m sure when I left the table most of them didn’t give it a second thought, but I’d like to think that maybe just one of them questioned why they had been so shocked in the first place and realized I was still the same person they’d always known, even though I may be a little bit out of the box they had originally placed me in.

And that’s what I hope for my son. I hope he grows up and sees that not everyone can fit into a neat box. That diversity, uniqueness and thinking outside of the norm are all good things. I want to teach him acceptance and tolerance. Compassion and kindness. As time goes by, tattoos will become more common but I know that in the world we live in, there will always be someone quick to judge or make an assumption based on appearance. And that’s okay. So when people ask me what it’s like to be a heavily tattooed Mom or how I think my tattoos will affect my son when he’s older, I still can’t say I know. All I can do is teach him to have an open mind and kind heart, and hope that the foundation his father and I have built for him will allow him to grow up to be a person who embraces differences. Or, at the very least, allow him to accept his two crazy, tattooed parents in all of their colorful glory!