Why I Find Thirty Threatening

For several months now, I've been fretting over turning thirty. I've imagined it as a grim reaper, beckoning me silently, ominously, wordlessly taunting me. Yes, I'm a *bit* of a drama queen. So even though my birthday next month will find me turning 29, not yet 30, I feel I must prepare myself for the three-decades-old landmark I am approaching.

At first, I began to notice a few slight changes in my body: This thing over here isn't where it used to be. Apparently, I can't continue eating like a nursing mother who needs the calories without subsequent weight gain; my metabolism has changed. I began to cry more easily - not just welling up with tears when I saw a sad story on the news, but ugly-crying complete with snot when reading a book about a character whose mother's dying wish was to set aside money to help pay for her wedding one day. And then there's the house, which I've never felt particularly bothered about painting, prettying, or decorating. But all of a sudden I feel passionately that I must. Decorate. Now. And any dissension from my darling husband is met with - how did Samuel L. Jackson quote it in Pulp Fiction? - righteous vengeance and furious anger. (Or at the very least, feelings more hurt than they should be over such trivial matters as re-purposing furniture we already own.)

All this stuff I'm not used to accommodating as a part of my body, habits, or personality was just thrusting itself upon me, and so far there doesn't seem to be much I can do about it. It simply is.

So I tried to jazz myself up with the idea of creating a "bucket list" of things to do before I turn 30 (not that it's the same as dying, just the same idea): read the Bible cover to cover (the one thing staying on the list), go to New York (probably can't afford it), get a tattoo (I may be too big a wimp), have another child (still possible but not probable, but I've always had the idea that I wanted to be done having children before 30), finish the house (does anyone ever really accomplish this?), etc.

Something about turning 30 - aside from the physical changes - feels grown-up. More than getting married, having kids, or buying a house ever did. Perhaps it's because Andrew and I decided to do all those things, in a logical progression, over time. Thirty leaves me no choice but to move forward, become solidified as a real grown-up. It's a strange, strange place to be.

But I take small comfort in knowing I've got just over a year to ready myself to meet the character waiting to reap the harvest that is and has been my twenties...