On growing older

Yesterday I turned 30.

Now I know for some people growing older is a frightening and difficult process.
When we are young each new birthday is a fun and exciting thing that we look forward to with great glee. Then something happens. You hit your milestone 21st birthday and suddenly somehow birthdays seem less exciting. I mean you aren't going to get any more cool new features like you did at 16, 18, or 21. Now all you are doing is getting old. Then as you approach 30 suddenly not only are your birthdays not cool they are frightening. People start to dread them, and freak out over the number that is approaching.

I am not one of these people.

Now granted I don't run around like an 8 year old, full of excitement and anticipation for my birthday, but I also do not fear my birthday. I am not afraid of getting older. I do not think of myself as old now that I am 30. I mean really it is two days since I was 29, I didn't magically become old in two days. Please.

I do typically dislike my birthdays on the simple knowledge that my birthdays rarely turn out well. I have a long history of really bad birthdays. I had a Sixteen Candles birthday...twice. That is right, my 17th and 18th birthday got all but forgotten because my brother graduated high school and then I graduated. I have spent a number of birthdays violently ill (13 was a good example of that. That one also had the birthday party no one came to because another friend whos birthday was a week after mine scheduled her party on the same day and everyone chose her party over mine. Cow.) I cry on my birthday very often (21 was a big crying birthday for me. Hysterics. And not the happy kind).

All in all I would say roughly half of my birthdays were pretty miserable.
I am happy to report that my 30th birthday was absolutely lovely. I had an abundance of 'me' time.
I spent the day mostly alone. I leisurely shopped for clothes and shoes, I had lunch with a girlfriend, I got my first ever pedicure, I lobbed off all of my hair, and then I finished the day with a semi surprise dinner with my friends. It was lovely.

So as I was saying I do not fear my birthday. Being 30 doesn't freak me out, or make me think about my own mortality, or anything else like that. I am certain I will enjoy my 30's as much, if not more than my 20's. Life only gets better as you move on. I am excited to see what this decade will bring me.

I am looking forward to this decade as a decade of changes. A decade without (or with less) fear.
I started off boldly by chopping my hair to a length it has not been since I was in 4th grade. This is a thing I would normally fear. This is a thing I would normally approach with trepidation. Yesterday though I faced it with a smile. It is only hair. It will grow back. Why worry. It will either look fabulous, or I can rock some head scarves for the next four months while it grows out.

And it is fabulous!
Risk paid off. I know it won't always pay off, but when it does it is good.

I will not my fear my 30's, I will not fear my life.
I will live life, because that is what it is there for.
Living.