It's the age that most women dread meeting, like bumping into an ex boyfriend at a friend's wedding after an acrimonious break up. It's the threshold of being 'young'. And when you work at a place where the average age of the girls walking by in swishing skirts is 23, it feels a lot older than 'not young'.
Here's a strange thing - nothing happened to me when I turned thirty. Well, nothing outwardly noticeable or obviously bone tingling. Yes I could make jokes about 'turning old' and the afore mentioned twenty somethings would laugh politely. I could preen and mime when someone assured me that I did not look a day older than 25 (mostly because they wanted to get some work done, but never mind that.)
Yes the body ages and yes, the eggs die. So now was the time to do something about it, if I really cared. It seems pithy that a society spawned notion could spark anything in me, particularly such a transformative flip. Then I remembered what I had told a friend who had laughingly confided that his best writing had come from the times he had fought with his parents as a perennially angry teenager: It's the inspiration that matters. The source is irrelevant.
Someone wise once said that the most important things in life are not spoken; they are felt. What I felt when I turned thirty was resolute. Now I had a reason to make every minute count. I felt bolder, more in touch with my inner self, because there's nothing left to judge. Nothing that I cared about, anyway. Most importantly, I felt happier. I knew what I wanted and I was going after it. Just like that.
To turning thirty.