There are birthdays and then there are significant birthdays, ones that end in a zero, marking the end of the decade that went before and the beginning of a whole new one. And what with Becky, our graphic designer extraordinaire, turning 30 this weekend and me celebrating my 40th birthday at the end of November, significant birthdays have been on our minds at Rock My HQ lately.
Becky, on turning 30
When I was eight, I wanted to be 25. It was always my favourite number and everyone who was 25 seemed so cool. Then I hit 25 and it was as amazing as I imagined it would be. Then I blinked and now I’m knocking on the door to the big 3-0, wishing I was eight again. Well, that’s not strictly true although over the past few weeks when I think about my impending milestone birthday I start to get a weird feeling in my stomach and I’m not sure I can explain why.
I am SUPER happy with my life right now. I have an amazing husband, a stupidly silly dog who brings me so much joy and a baby boy. He is the icing on the biggest bestest cake ever. So what’s with the butterflies?! I’m happy, work is great, I have awesome friends… What on earth is going on?!
I can safely say that I’m feeling and looking better than I ever have in my whole life. There are a few crow’s feet creeping in but nothing that I can’t deal with. I’m exercising a lot more than I have done in the past and I’m trying to eat healthily (with the odd chocolate digestive thrown in). But is all of that because I am aware that I am turning 30? Am I having some sort of early mid-life meltdown? I’m definitely a lot more aware lately that I only get one life and one body to carry me through that life so I need to start looking after it.
Inside I feel like I’m 21. And I act like a 21 year old most of the time. Should I be more sensible now? Should my age be defining me more? Should I be wearing smart clothes to big meetings instead of rolled-up jeans and a t-shirt that says Take Another Pizza My Heart with a picture of a giant pizza underneath?
I don’t think so. And actually I wonder if that weird feeling in my stomach is maybe contentment. Could I actually be ok with turning 30 and these butterflies are excitement about what’s to come between now and the next milestone? Maybe I’ll have to come back when I turn 40 and let you know how the thirties went.
Me, on turning 40
I have to admit that I didn’t deal with the run up to my 40th birthday particularly well. There were dark 3am thoughts (why do they always happen at 3am, when it’s not socially acceptable to call anyone up and ask, “Did you feel like this too?” also they’d be asleep). I burst into tears for no reason. I started to read articles about turning 40 on the internet. They didn’t help. In fact they made me feel worse. Mostly because the lives they described were so different from mine.
You see between the ages of 30 and 39, while my friends acquired boyfriends who (sometimes) became husbands, started businesses, moved out of London and/or had children, the relationship I thought was forever imploded, my mum died, I handed in my notice on my glossy mag editor job and went travelling, ticking off several items on my life to do list (including getting a yoga teacher training qualification, take surf lessons in Costa Rica and go on a road trip around California). I suppose from the outside it might have looked as if I was having a mid-life crisis. Whatever, I had a lot of fun doing it.
When I tried to work out why I wasn’t handling the run up to my birthday very well I realised that I was getting worked up about what I thought 40 should look like (marriage, kids, sensible clothes, house in the burbs) instead of just getting on with living my life the way I want to live it.
While part of me wanted to run away and turn 40 on a beach/up a mountain/in a city far, far away, in the end I decided on dinner with a small group of friends. Big parties are just not my thing. I don’t love being the centre of attention and I’m much happier having one-to-one conversations than entertaining a crowd. I guess that’s the wisdom that comes with getting older, knowing what makes you happy and having the confidence to do that, instead of what everybody else is doing.
In the morning after a lovely evening I woke up, had breakfast with two of my oldest friends who’d stayed over and, you know what, I felt fine. I’m less than two weeks in, but my forties are pretty good so far. I’m looking forward to what comes next.
Have you had big jitters over reaching a milestone age? How have you handled them? Do you feel defined by your age? Becky would also like some feedback on the wearing of silly slogan t-shirts. Just in case you know, that’s totally not ok.
I’ll start the predictable avalanche of identical comments…NO WAY ARE YOU 40! You look amazing!
I’m 31 next week, how did that happen?! there are lots of things left on my to do list but there are also some major ones ticked off. if we get everything all at once we won’t appreciate as much.
Aw, thanks Kathryn! I agree, it’s a good idea to spread out the stuff on your to do list, but to get to work on ticking them off, starting with the ones that are most important to you.
I am turning the big 4 0 in February and I’ve already warned everyone that I will be having a breakdown. I can’t believe I’m going to be forty where did the time go?! I met my husband when I was about to turn 30 (I had a mini breakdown with that birthday) he is 5 years younger than me so I already feel old!
I work with nearly all women and most of them are young and beautiful. I liked to think I’m one of the girls when we all go out but lately I really am starting to think do I look like the old tag along they all humour?
To make matters worse when I was out the other day my assistant and I witnessed a car accident and when the policeman took our details he asked me if she was my daughter (she’s 22!)
I’m trying to be positive and think I am very grateful to get to this age which I am. It also helps when I normally tell people my age they look shocked and say I don’t look it (apart from that bloody policeman!)
So I am having a party and I’m going to be fabulous and forty!
As I said in the post Stacey, I didn’t handle the run up to 40 very well at all so I’m not going to be all like, ‘Of course you won’t have a breakdown,’ but now that I’m on the other side I feel exactly the same as I did before, the run up is definitely worse than the reality! I think it’s good to spend time with people of all ages – I have friends who are their twenties, thirties, forties and fifties, it’s a good mix. I’m reading Diane Von Furstenberg’s book (The Woman I Wanted To Be) which I’m finding very inspiring, particularly in terms of life post-40.
I’m sure a lot of people will be saying this, but when you said you were celebrating a significant birthday I thought it was your 30th – you look fantastic. I’m off to join my nearest yoga class asap…
I think there’s always an age that you still feel. I still feel that I’m 19. I wish I was, hangovers were a lot easier back then. My brother is about to turn 30 next week and I think my Mum is taking is worse than him! “I can’t be old enough to have children that are in their 30’s…”. Becky, slogan t-shirts are definitely acceptable (this pizza one sounds immense…where is it from?!) Happy Birthday to you both!! x
Thank you Sian! Hmm, I’m not sure what my inner age is, 25 perhaps?!
Sian, it’s from Topshop. Obvs. x
Thanks Becky. I will go scouting today, when I pick up my ‘Snow Chance’ festive jumper from there too x
paha! amaze.
Sian, I went into Topshop this avo and I saw the jumper. It took every ounce of self control for me not to buy it.
Ha! My mum makes us call her ‘Aunty Jenny’ for precisely this reason 🙂
You definitely don’t look 40 Miranda! I turn 30 next June and I think I’m still in denial over it. I have days when I think, it’s ok I’m ready to leave my twenties behind. They were fun but my thirties will be a new adventure. Then there are others when all I want is to be an 18yr old backpacker again. Either way that date is fast approaching and I’ll just have to get used to it. I was so excited to get to 20, I wanted to be older. Now I wish time would slow down, so I can enjoy being 29 a little bit longer. But I know deep down I’ll be fine, age is just a number after all, I’m still the same person (I still don’t feel like a proper adult though, does this ever change?).
Thank you Alex! You’re so right, you’re still exactly the same person however old you are. I love this quote from Karl Lagerfeld that I read recently: “Youthfulness is about how you live, not when you were born.” I don’t think anyone ever feels like a proper adult, at least I don’t – we’re all just winging it!
Miranda, your life sounds blimmin’ brilliant and, also, really brave to have chucked the job and followed your heart when you needed to. I think taking surfing lessons in Costa Rica and road trips in California would have made you grow as a person in a way that buying sensible clothes and a house just can’t!
I think I spent my 20s in a bit of an immature, confused blur – still trying to get to know myself and understand who I was. It’s only since I turned 30 that I’ve really started to feel comfortable in my own skin, which I think is later than most people but WHO CARES, everyone has to live their own life! I chucked in a long-term relationship just before I turned 30 and honestly thought that was it for me love-wise – I started looking at jobs abroad and was ready to take a leap into the unknown because domestic, settling down didn’t look like it was on the cards (and didn’t look that appealing tbh). That was actually really liberating and it meant that being 30 was probably the age during which I grew up the most.
In the end, my great adventure abroad never happened because I met a lovely man in London and we’ve now settled down and live in suburbia and are getting married/planning kids – but every now and then I do wish we could just leave everything and go explore instead of worrying about what to add to our online Tesco order, zzz!
I definitely didn’t start feeling comfortable in my own skin until after I turned 30 Kate, you’re not alone there! Ah, your story proves that we can plan all we want but then something unexpected will happen and send us off in a totally different direction to the one we were expecting. I’m sure you’ll find a way to travel at some point in your life if it matters to you, I met a wonderful lady, who must have been well into her 60s, at the hostel I was staying at in Lisbon earlier this year. She’d sold everything she owned and was travelling the world and having a ball by all accounts. Last month she walked the Camino de Santiago (I keep up with her adventures on Facebook!).
I couldn’t agree with you more x
Mr H and I both have significant birthdays within a year of each other; his was in September and mine will be in May.
Up until fairly recently I’ve been fairly sanguine about the whole idea; everyone was telling me that I’d ticked all the ‘boxes’ that were expected of you in your twenties – marriage, babies (well, one), mortgage, career. I’ve been very unfussed about it all, unlike my approach to my twenties when I had many panicked moments in which I was horrified at the idea that any of this was going to happen in the next decade (Which it did. Not too scary after all!).
However. My mum passed away extremely unexpectedly 6 weeks ago and I’m now feeling both very old and very young at the same time. I hadn’t envisaged celebrating my 30th without her around (we were going to go away, close friends and family, somewhere in the UK for a long weekend), and it has thrown all my thoughts and plans about it into disarray. I don’t feel old enough to have lost a parent, and equally I feel very old as I now have to do it ‘on my own’ without her guidance; I’m the grown up now.
So I really don’t know what I’m going to do now. If we do go away as a group there will be a big gap where she should be, and I don’t really fancy a party. I ought to celebrate it, I’ve got very into celebrating life recently, I just have no idea how.
(Oh, and another “I can’t believe you’re 40, you’re obviously doing something very right”!)
Oh Sara, I’m so very sorry to hear that your mum has passed away. I can’t pretend to know how you feel because my mum died after a long illness, although in the end she deteriorated quite quickly, and even having had a little time to prepare didn’t mean I was prepared. You’re so right, you feel both very old and very young at the same time. Birthdays without mum are hard. We used to have a tradition of her coming to London on a weekend close to my birthday and we would out for lunch at this Italian restaurant she liked and then go and see a show, and I really miss doing that. It’s still hard nearly three years on, but a little less hard, I guess. You’ve got time to figure out what to do on your birthday, and you might well change your mind several times between now and then. I know I went through so many different emotions in the months after mum died. Sending you so much love. xxx
I am going to add my voice : Miranda you do not look like you turned 40! You look amazing!
I loved turning 30! I think the 20s suck! You are poor, not confident, you are nowhere career wise, you have rubbish boyfriends. Getting older means getting wiser and I love that!
Thank you Marine and yay for being older and wiser!
I was very lucky that I was whisked away to New York for my 30th birthday so I was looking forward to that rather than fretting about crows feet etc. My now husband proposed while we were there – I dropped a lot of not so subtle hints beforehand – but I think this milestone did put on some pressure for a proposal (we had been together over seven years though at that point). I have moments when I feel very grown up and find I occasionally mentally remind myself that I am a grown women who knows her own mind, but most of the time age doesn’t really impact my life and I just feel like me.
I received a text message from a friend who is also 31 a few months ago asking how ‘grown ups’ are supposed to behave as her husband had given her a piggy back around the house and she was now spinning him round on an office chair. This made me laugh so hard as earlier that day I had been ‘ice skating’ across my laminate floor in slippy socks.
I think the nerves around significant birthdays are because it makes you look back over the last 5, 10 or more years and you realise how quickly life seems to have flown by. As much as I loved my late teen years and twenties and it is great to still feel that age when you are just being yourself with your girlfriends (not a being a mum, wife, or whatever else for an evening), I am quite happy to leave the dating rules, unsuitable men, and horrific hangovers to other twenty-somethings while I pretend to be sensible and ‘grown up’.
Good on you Miranda for being so brave and taking risks to follow your dreams!
I think it’s very important to be silly Claire, life would be boring otherwise! Yep, birthdays that end in a zero definitely make you look back over the last five or ten years and also look ahead and think about the NEXT five or ten years and for me that mostly means making a list of the countries I want to visit!
I’m loving everyone’s comments here, inspirational ladies and Amanda I love that you know how to be happy and atracked the big birthday in style (but seriously, you no way pass for 40)
I’m approaching my 30th in Feb and it does make me feel a bit uneasy but I’m not sure if it’s the birthday or the fact that I know my life will be so different when the big 3 0 drops. I’m due to give birth to my first any day now and I’m so excited but it’s kind if a game changer, I still feel like I’m about 20, but now I’m going to be a mummy, and a housewife with no income of my own, dependant on my husband (at least in the short term) and a body that I just don’t recognise! Am I supposed to act differently in this new role? I guess it will all fall into place and 30 will truely be a new chapter for me and my new little family.
Miranda not Amanda. Apologies. I’ll blame my baby brain on that one!
How exciting Georgina, your life is inevitably going to be different, but at the end of the day you’ll still be you. Good luck with birth, what a wonderful early Christmas present!
Great post. I’m turning 30 soon and already the butterflies are fluttering about that I’m not married, no kids, no mortgage and in fact currently travelling round South America with my much younger French boyfriend! I would never have imagined my life to be like this and I’m hoping hard that age is just a number and happiness and fun has no age limit!
How wonderful to be travelling South America with your much younger French boyfriend Katy! There’s still plenty of time for marriage, kids, mortgages and all of those things, if you decided that’s what you want. If not there’s plenty of world to explore! I referenced it in an earlier comment but in case you didn’t see it, I love this quote from Karl Lagerfeld: “Youthfulness is about how you live, not when you were born.” I’m in agreement!
I was talking about exactly this topic with some girlfriends recently. We’re a mix of ages ranging from 27 through to 39. For the record, I turned 34 in September. I was waxing lyrical about how my 30s have been the best ever, and keep getting better. There are so many reasons, but mainly it’s the power and comfort of self-assurance.
In my opinion, (and was shared by my other 30+ friends) you’re the most aware of your own self, your own values, what makes you happy, what makes you sad (and therefore what/who/where to avoid), you know how you like to be treated and therefore how you choose to treat people. And then there is more superficial self-assurance like being really in tune with your own style (which saves you a tonne of money in the sales… no more racer back tops for me!).
From a career perspective, the hard bloody work you did in your 20s finally starts to pay off in terms of disposable income and you no longer feel like your employer has a hold over you because you know your own value which creates a more level playing field. You are playing with more objectivity, more experience, more confidence to know what and how to negotiate in a work environment so you get more of what you want, whether that’s a pay rise, preferred role/career path or project etc. I don’t believe you have that perspective in your 20s because you are too head down and busy beavering it away to work your way getting somewhere.
It’s so cliche to say that age isn’t a number, and that it’s how you feel, and another year older, another year wiser – but I really subscribe to all of that! I wouldn’t want to go back to my early twenties for love nor money. At best I was insecure and at worst I was a bloody idiot and so deluded at times!! (it was sure fun being a naive idiot though! Ha ha!!) All of this is not to say that with age has come pig ignorance or a stench of arrogance, which I hope I am not coming across as being.
Basically in my experience, the older you get, the more you love yourself, but not in a bad way! A lady who loves herself at the age of 20 has very different behaviours to a lady who loves herself at 30, 40, 50 and 60!
Happy birthday to all the birthday girls out there, cheers to loving yourself more
xxx
Absolutely agree with everything you said in your comment Nicola! Knowing (and liking) yourself better, which you do the older you get, is absolutely the key to having a happier life. In addition to everything you said I look after myself better now, eating more healthily most of the time (I pretty much lived on pasta and pesto during my 20s!), exercising regularly (which I didn’t do through my 20s and early 30s, even though I was a very sporty teen) and having an early night if I need it, and that’s all because I know I feel and function better when I’m eating well, exercising regularly and staying in when I need to (without any FOMO!). xxx
AMEN to kissing goodbye to FOMO!! That is such a great point!!!
I stayed in the other Friday night and painted my nails and had the best night ever! Ha ha!!
xxx