#your 30's

[nacapito]

* Current status

[andydoesit]

Last night was about friends, fun and...

Not eating much at dinner because I'm broke.

[canttakeitwithyou]

20 revelations about leaving your 20's

1.      Maybe you’ll convince yourself that you really do like “sugar free” - maybe.

2.      You’ll find a better place to put your spare car key - somewhere that’s easy to describe over the phone in a panic (“Hook on the inside of the pantry door!” instead of “Go into the garage and find the old file cabinet – the one with broken locks on the middle and bottom drawers– not the cabinet with Scooby-Doo sticker on the front of it.  Then you’ll have to pry the middle drawer open with the alan wrench that should be next to the work station.  I think the key should be in there somewhere but it might be buried pretty good under some old traffic tickets-don’t look at those by the way. Please hurry!”).

3.      Staying out all night will no longer be your favorite hobby.  It used to be, but then you realize that getting wasted will no doubt revisit you for the entire next week.  Suddenly, the thought of pulling an all-nighter won’t seem like that much fun anymore and you’ll enjoy getting 8 full hours of sleep - wishing everyone would shut up so you could.

4.      Maybe cutting back on your chocolate consumption won’t be as spiritually and physically debilitating as you think.  After all, you already know you should be nice to people who are cranky and brain-dead because all they want is to have at the very least one vice-and you’re certainly no stranger to that.  People’s relationship to their vices is only intensified by the critical observations of others.  Don’t be an enabler.  

5.       Your credit may finally reach a point where everyone now wants to lend you money that you use to owe them in your twenties.  You’ll decide to buy yourself a new car in honor of your 30’s.  The salesman at the Toyota dealership informs you that your credit score is well over 700 and you could basically buy whatever you want.  You decide to go straight to the BMW dealership with this news hoping they got the same memo.  Some may think you’re a fool – but they clearly don’t know how mature you look in your new ride.

6.      You’ll start to realize when people are regularly feeding you 3 square meals of bullshit.  If someone’s life sounds too perfect, call it fiction – and get on with yours.

7.       Lucky Charms? You’re better off with fiber hunny.

8.      You’ll probably get secretly frustrated and slightly envious when you can’t check the age box ‘25-29’ anymore.  I have nothing more to say about that one.

9.      You’ll need to start questioning your need for all of those old magazines with interesting articles in them and the empty awkwardly sized picture frames that you swear you’re going to fill and display someday.  Don’t put them in a “give away” pile, because you never will.  Watch Hoarders if you think I’m full of crap.  At least I’m not full of old issues of Cosmopolitan and Vogue.

10.   You’ll realize that getting married wasn’t about you.  You’ll discover you wasted time worrying about things being perfect, stumbling on your vows, worrying about not inviting your grandmother’s second cousin that you’ve never uttered a full and complete sentence to in your life, your hair falling when the humidity gets too heavy, or having your maid of honor mention some pretty delicate things about your past relationships when she gets a little too much of that cheap champagne in her.  Navigating your mother around in the rain – forgetting the umbrella -  to the find the perfect hair piece, having to re-mail your friend’s invitation 3 times because she doesn’t know her own address, and the fights about the Mediterranean  menu vs. the World Cuisine menu and of course, the liquor selection.  Getting married is a magnificent process that changes your relationship by posing the question: after it’s all said and done, would you go through all of this for anybody else?  

11.    …so don’t be a jerk if someone becomes consumed by their own wedding. You’ll be the wiser in knowing that they will later become aware of how unattractive this was.

12.    You’ll learn to let go by realizing that the number of sweaters you’ll need if you live in Miami is 3.

13.   You’ll be over the moon happy to receive your new Dyson vacuum at Christmas.

14.   30 is an age at which people will start to actually fear mortality, wrinkles, and a hip replacement because something now makes a clicking sound.  It’s when muffin top is no longer a term that you cringe at because you’ve graduated to worrying about that roll of fat around the middle a.k.a spare tire.  It’s like waking up 10 minutes before your alarm clock goes off, except you’re waking up 10 years before your alarm clock goes off.  So go back to sleep.

15.    You’ll have enough self worth and views of your own at this point in your life to stop bothering with someone who disagrees with your political stance, someone who prefers to communicate through grunting over speaking, or someone who can’t let a better looking girl pass by without leaning over to whisper in your ear, look how anorexic.  

16.   You’ll care about and appreciate your family more.

17.    You’ll learn how to do your taxes without phoning a lifeline.

18.   The world will start to respect you more and see you as an adult.  Teenagers will assume you have children in grade school.  You’ll see your friends have babies who look like your friends – all of this will blow your mind.  

19.   You’ll be jealous of your sister-in-law’s new front loading GE King-size Energy Star washing machine and dryer.

20.  The most important information about entering this beautiful new decade of life is that you’re never too old for anything until you say, “I think I might be too old for this.”  But you’ll be wiser than ever, so you’ll already know that.  Talk to me in another 30 years when you’re wearing 14 layers in July and I will probably tell you the same thing.