The one about turning 30…

I am not sure what’s especially significant about turning 30 for a woman. Is just the fact we’re moving age brackets? Or perhaps it’s just you lose a little more of your youth, and the permissions that come along with it for being able to make mistakes and learn from them.

To be honest, I finally feel like my age has finally grown into my personality! When you’re an overly generous, motherly person in your 20’s (something I have developed over years of keeping an eye on my 12-years-younger brother, cousins, a lot of times, my parents), people always feel like you have some hidden motive and some think you’re secretly flirting with them… OR if you’re an introvert and prefer Saturday nights on the couch with some ice cream and Harry Potter over dressing up and going out to night clubs in your early 20’s then your friends just feel like you’re trying to be a goody-two-shoes and can’t be fun or ‘loose’ around you OR when you tell your corporate colleagues that it shouldn’t matter how I dress or what time I come into work as long as the work I deliver is outstanding and they call you weird and ‘hippy-ish’ Basically, being 30 has given me permission to be myself, when you’re a wife and mother of two characteristics that were once weird, different, nerdy suddenly become endearing, comforting and charming.

Looking back, I think I can distinctly segment my life into thirds. The first 10 years was learning how to be a good South Indian girl. Then, having arrived on the shores of Australia, I spent the next decase llearning how to be Australian so that I could fit in. After which, I spent most of my 20s trying to find myself in amongst many opposing value sets and striking a balance between the two cultures and educating my family.

Now with age, perspective and plenty of varied experiences comes a certain wisdom. I started to care less and less about what other people thought of me, (even though hurtful words still sting). I learned to think more and say less, be more empathetic in the way that I process and deliver information and to try to never take things personally, because majority of the negative reactions and responses of people are generally because of their own insecurities and experiences and rarely about you.

Here are a list of things that I have found out about myself over the years and find very hard to change:

• I have high expectations of myself, and my family (very high)
• I genuinely do not know what to do with compliments, my general response is either an awkward ‘aww, that’s sweet’ or a sarcastic deflection to neutralise any possible chance of uncomfortable affection. I do appreciate them though!
• I demand mutual respect and fairness as an absolute minimum in all my relationships
• I hate feeling like I owe people something, so I tend to get carried away with my generosity
• I do not have a filter, I usually say what I feel or don’t say anything at all and much prefer being direct in any situation
• I am oblivious to many things in the world, by choice. I feel burdened by things that I can do nothing to change so I try not to pay any mind to them, especially if they’re distressing
• I am perfectly content being on my own as I have a constant monologue going on in my head of what’s going on around me, what people are wearing, doing, what colour the sky is. I keep myself entertained for hours, my imagination is wild
• I am a hopeless romantic, sweet gestures, meet cutes and all
• I know I am an obliger, so I take special care to not let others take advantage of my nature
• I believe in constantly evolving and moving forward to becoming someone new, someone better. I’d like to think that people who knew me from the past, know only a fraction of the person I am now

I remember in my 20’s I would look up so much to people in my 30’s thinking, they’re older, they should have it together I should aspire to be like them. As you get older, you realise that maturity, responsibility, kindness and wisdom have nothing to do with age and I probably shouldn’t have given so much such a high pedestal for being older than I was. Over time, you learn to just do what you need to do to be happy and enjoy the blessing that as your life as best you can without hurting anyone.

With time you realise that there is nothing more important to me than being myself, being happy and living my life the best possible way that I can, in a way that when I look back on it in another 10 years, I can feel happy to have lived them.

And recollecting goals I had set for myself a year ago, here are my updates on progress!

Here’s to another 30 years of love, growth and fun ❤ How did you feel when you turned 30? Let me know!