Turning 30

30 is a big one - simply because our society likes base ten and thinks of any age or anniversary ending in zero as "a big one," and not actually because anything TRULY changes. Still, I'm not above such sentimentality, so I've taken turning 30 as an excuse to reflect back on my 20s and make plans for my next decade.

Turns out when you look at an entire decade, it's easy to feel accomplished. You can do a LOT in ten years! My 20s were no exception; they were certainly my most accomplished decade yet, if not likely my most accomplished decade I'll ever have (depending on how you define such things). I experienced many milestones that are universally considered significant in my 20s - as many do - but I also had some great experiences that were meaningful on a more personal level, too. 

My 20s included*:

*a non-exhaustive list

SCHOOL & PROFESSIONAL ADVENTURES

• Finishing my thesis and earning the thesis award
• Graduating with highest honors from EMU and earning a double-concentration BFA in Graphic Design and Watercolor, with a minor in Art History
• Working at EMU Campus Life
• Working at Charming Charlie
• Working as a substitute teacher
• Working as a graphic designer at Temple Israel
• Working as a freelance custom invitation designer for several weddings and bar/bat mitzvahs
• Being flown to Denver to be interviewed for L'Art Erotique, a Quebec art TV show
• Selling my artwork on Etsy and at Paint Creek Center for the Arts
• Creating artwork commissions for family, friends, and strangers
• Showing work at EMU art galleries, the Detroit Scarab Club, the Canton Village Theater, the Carr Center, and the Grosse Pointe War Memorial

TRAVEL ADVENTURES

• Going on a Mediterranean cruise with my soon-to-be-husband's family
• Honeymooning on the Greek islands of Santorini and Mykonos
• Taking a road trip out west with friends
• Nearly annual trips to Virginia Beach
• Visiting Universal Resort's Harry Potter World in Florida
• Spending eight days visiting museums and seeing plays in New York City

PERSONAL ADVENTURES

• Getting engaged
• Planning a wedding and getting married
• Buying a house and moving to Rochester Hills
• Completing lots of home improvement projects, including new bathrooms, patio, roof, siding, insulation, and windows
• Adopting a puppy
• Prioritizing self-care and self-esteem building
• Being diagnosed with diabetes and starting insulin
• Getting a tattoo
• Getting pregnant

Of course, there were some not-so-great experiences with the great ones. Some of the items on the list above were challenging times (or led to challenging times) - but I wanted to include those moments as well, because they have helped shape me into the 30-year-old I am. Of course I wish I was never diagnosed with diabetes, or that my first pregnancy hadn't ended in miscarriage - but I can't change those things; I can only change how I feel about them. As for things I DID have some control over, even at the time - things like jobs I worked or decisions I made or paths I pursued: I don't tend to feel regret about my past; I don't tend to think of anything as a "mistake." Instead I romanticize challenges as Things I've Survived, focusing on what I gained or learned from them. If I had my 20s to do over again, I'd probably do it all over again in a very similar, if not identical, way. Sure, there are some things I wish I'd figured out earlier - like how to prioritize and take care of myself more - but I'm getting there. It's all part of my journey, which, being MY journey, I get to do at my own pace.

I started trying to make a list of things I'd like to accomplish in my 30s, but it's hard to think that far into the future. There are some obvious choices for things to put on the list - things I want immediately or soon, and hope to accomplish in the next few years. But then what goals should I make for the REST of my 30s, after I complete those? It's hard to imagine what my goals will be for the years I'm 37, 38, 39... 

But here are my immediate goals and priorities, the things I'm already working towards, thinking about, planning, setting the stage for, etc.:

• Having artwork shown in more galleries/exhibitions
• Getting a novel published
• Getting pregnant again; having children
• Doing "short vacations" around North America (e.g. returning to Stratford, Ontario for more theater experiences; finally seeing the Tulip Festival in Holland, Michigan; taking long weekend trips to interesting cities around the U.S. I haven't been to yet)
• Doing more home improvements (e.g. adding built-ins to the living room and/or dining room; renovating the kitchen)

I'm sure I will add so much more to the list as my 30s wear on and I come up with more ideas, more things to pursue.

A lot of people fear turning 30 (or 40, or 50, or 60, or whatever they've decided is their arbitrary designation of Real Adulthood or Old Age), but I'm not one of those people. I'm not immune to the existential anxieties that come from starting a new decade; I just try to find other things to focus on instead. I find things to look forward to, things to dream about, goals to write down. And I also like to send presents into the future to myself - things that can help me get through potentially challenging times. When I was 23, I wrote myself a letter to open on my 30th birthday. I wrote another such letter when I was 26. I sealed these letters in envelopes and put them in my desk drawer; I see them every time I open that drawer to grab a stamp or address label. By now, I've totally forgotten what I wrote, and I'm really excited to read them all again. I am so anxious to see what stupid and wise things I wrote to myself, what questions I wanted to know, and what I was hoping to accomplish by 30 or feel at 30. It will be like rediscovering a lost corner of my mind, it will deepen and bolster my sense of self, and it will contribute to the narrative of my life I am continually writing and rewriting. As a result of those time-traveling letters, then, my primary emotion associated with turning 30 is not anxiety about growing older, but excited anticipation.

So naturally I'm doing it for when I turn 40 as well. Just today I wrote a letter and sealed it in an envelope: "Do not open until your 40th birthday - December 20, 2028!"

Future Me

So there's this really cool website called FutureMe.org that you should really check out, especially if you're at all interested in self-reflection or journaling. The concept is simple - you write whatever you want to tell your future self, pick a date in the future to send your message to, and supply them with your email address. Then, on whatever future day you picked, you get a surprise email from the past!

(You can read more about the concept here.)

I wrote myself a letter back in September 2014 to be delivered one year into the future, and I received the email a couple months ago (Sept. 2015).

I started the email by asking myself how some of my friends and family were doing. (Has so-and-so made that change they wanted to? Gotten that job/graduated/moved/etc.?) I also asked about myself:

"Am I making money from my art now? Do I have a thriving Etsy shop? Am I painting and drawing more?"

"How are my novels coming along? I'm just finishing the first two (again) this week and then I plan start looking into sending feelers out to agents and publishers while I continue on writing the rest of the series. Am I doing this?"

"Did we get a puppy? How is Tyler doing? He's about to turn 16 this year and though he's a bit blind and deaf and occasionally unsteady on his feet, he seems pretty good for almost 16!"

I was amazed at how accurate many of my predictions turned out to be. (Though they were written in question form, really they were predictions.) We did get a puppy. I did make (some) money on my art. I have started to send out query letters for my story. I did quit substitute teaching. Even mundane things came true - we did plant new trees in our backyard.

Of course, some things didn't happen - but they were all things I had little/no control over, so I can hardly be blamed. Like putting Tyler down three months shy of his seventeenth birthday. Or things I expected to happen in the lives of my family/friends that didn't (yet) pan out.

What really struck me though was the tone of the email, especially at the end. It started out innocently enough, making predictions about what might be going on in my life and the lives of those closest to me, but it ended with sort of a desperate plea that the future would be better than where I was at the time. Honestly, I sound almost legitimately depressed - but I think I was just having a really bad day on that particular September 2014 day, and that it was in fact my not feeling great and being worried about stagnancy that prompted me to write the letter in the first place. I don't think I felt like that every day.

"Tell me good news. Tell me everything is okay. At the very least, tell me that it is not ridiculous to have these dreams. Tell me I am happy, or nearly happy, or working toward being happy. Tell me something has changed - for the better - in the last 12 months that made those 12 months worth living. Tell me that all I am feeling now is just a distant memory. Tell me that life is great. And tell the truth."

It surprises me though how desperate I sounded. I guess it's good that it surprised me - because that means I haven't felt that down in awhile.

I got a little dramatic in that letter, but I've also used FutureMe for more "everyday" things - like sending myself reminders. I recently hosted a Thanksgiving dinner for my family (my first ever hosting!) and though it all turned out pretty well, there were a couple small changes I plan to do in the future, or things I wanted to remind myself about what did work best - i.e. "Make fewer desserts" and "Don't put foil on the turkey drumsticks too soon" and the recipe for the sparkling cider punch that was so delicious. So I wrote a quick email to myself with that information and sent it off to November 2016 so it'll appear in my inbox and remind me of precisely the things I wanted to remember.

I love stuff like this, though. That's sort of what these blog posts are too - memories. I don't tend to go back and reread my blogs much after I write them, but when I write in my personal journals, I do go back and reread. I have nearly forty journals (small notebooks) I've kept over the years - from my first diary in first grade (filled with atrocious spelling) to my current journal, which has a great picture of Rome on the cover and a map of the city on the back cover. Every few years, I dig all my old journals out and reread them; I'm in the process of typing them up onto my computer so I have a digital version (in case, God forbid, anything should happen to the journals someday). I don't type every word, but I type the "good stuff" - the stuff I definitely want to remember.

It's amazing to me, going back and rereading those journals, how much has changed - and how much hasn't. It's like reading about history, and how everyday people lived in ancient Rome, or what the ancient Roman emperors and philosophers wrote about. Sometimes I'm like, wow, humans have NOT changed in the last two millennia; we have exactly the same concerns and reflections and ideas now that we had back then. And other times I'm like, fuck no, life is so much better now than it was then! Ancient history sounds awful! I'm so glad that's behind us. Rereading old journals is just like that - but on a personal scale. I get a really big kick out of it.