(Also this post is going to include excessive animal gifs, because I feel like it.)
Somehow, over the last two months since my 30th birthday, I have accidentally and unintentionally changed.
One of my first posts ever was about how I don’t believe in resolutions. This is still true. Resolutions tend to be unrealistic, broad-sweeping declarations of instant change. And I simply don’t believe that is how people work. After all, like pounds on the scale, most habits are gained gradually over time. You can only get rid of them (or change them) in the same way they were developed… slowly and intentionally over time.
Change doesn’t just happen while you lie there, right?
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Age ain’t nothin’ but a number, afterall.
I had no thoughts of resolutions or growing up or anything. I tend to think I am pretty darn awesome as-is, and am not really trying to “improve myself” or anything silly and general like that. I also didn’t go into my 30th birthday with any sort of mentality of it changing me. Afterall, even though you are “one year older“, it’s really only one day later in your life.
You don’t wake up on your birthday and actually feel different.
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Sometimes a joke turns into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I keep joking with friends about things I have done in the past, or even three months ago, declaring “Oh, well that was 20-something me… 30-something me is different.” As in “those shoes are so 2012“. With mock disdain and inflated historical-ness.
But recently, I have decided that I think it IS possible for internal change to sneak up on you without you trying and when you aren’t looking. Heck, it can come out of seemingly nowhere and startle you.
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Can you be new and improved but still the same?
So as I mentioned, I have unintentionally and accidentally changed a bit. It’s mostly tiny changes… minor shifts in attitudes and desires and actions. And let’s be realistic in the fact that I have officially been in my 30s for two months. That’s not exactly enough time to document any sort of real alterations. But sometimes it’s the little adjustments that seem to actually have the greatest impacts.
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So far 30-something me does the following:
- Tries a lot more types of food and tends to like them. (Especially seafood. OMG seafood is goooooood.)
- Doesn’t get too crazy-town when going out (A 30 yr old liver is not a 21 yr old liver. And drunk 21-yr-old choices are not attractive on a 30-something.)
- Is less imposing of her feelings/thoughts onto others. (Just because I am a snob doesn’t mean I should make others feel their own choices are wrong.)
- Is actively getting her finances under control. (It’s a process and there is only so much I can do about student loans, but living within my means is needed.)
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Now, none of these are huge changes, really. I am still fundamentally me.
But it’s like I subconsciously want to kind of get-my-shiznit-together now that I am in a new decade. There are silly dumb things I used to do that I am just OVER.
(Doesn’t mean I won’t still make silly mistakes… being 30 isn’t some sort of magical fix for future dumb decisions.)
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But the coolest thing? None of these were actively decided. They just kinda happened. Take that, effort!
Somehow, parts of being a thirty-something is ACTUALLY KINDA DIFFERENT than being a 20-something. Huh.
Maybe turning 30 actually changed me.
Maybe it made me an even more awesome me.
