Every year I write a birthday post reflecting on the year behind me and the one ahead. I’ve shared thoughts on turning 27, 28 and 29, and even a list of goals I wanted to accomplish before 30. But now, on my 30th birthday, the feeling is different — sharper, heavier, and somehow more real.
People often say your thirties are easier: that you’re more settled, more confident, that things make more sense. I can hear the eye-roll from anyone actually in their thirties, so I’ll acknowledge that up front. Still, there’s truth in some of that for me. I feel clearer about certain choices I’ve made and about who I am.
I’m sure I made the right call scaling down my team and leaving a dedicated office space. Letting go of the pressure that comes with managing an in-person team has been freeing. I also know now that staying home full time as a parent isn’t the right fit for me — a recent stretch without childcare clarified that completely.
I understand myself better as an introvert and recognize the boundaries I need to protect my energy. I’ve rediscovered long-buried passions like interior design and remembered how much I prefer being rooted in one place rather than living a nonstop jet-setting life. I’ve also accepted small certainties — that chocolate desserts are usually worth it. And I’m convinced this platform I’ve built exists so I can do something meaningful with it, even if I haven’t yet figured out exactly what that will be.
These realizations have been empowering. I feel more aligned with many parts of my life than I ever did in my twenties. Yet as my thirties approach, other things feel heavier, as if the new decade will cement responsibilities and worries that are already weighing on me.
The list of those weights is long: the pressure of being the primary earner, the complexities of adoption and raising a transracial family, balancing introversion with motherhood, navigating chronic health issues, and grappling with an increasingly fraught world and what role I play in it. There’s money anxiety and questions about how much is enough. There’s the strain of living publicly on social media, distance from close friends and family, and the nagging feeling that I lost a professional identity and haven’t fully reclaimed it.
Growing up I always had clear, if sometimes naïve, goals: finish high school, complete college, start a business — check, check, check. Be married by 25 and a mom by 27 — those happened too. But after hitting those milestones, I never planned as concretely. This is the first time I don’t have a specific number or deadline to chase. As someone who tends to plan ahead, that lack of a clear next step feels disorienting.
My mind keeps looping on big questions: What’s next? Is this what I want? Where do I want to take my business? What lifestyle will best serve my family? Six months ago I uprooted my life path and I have many ideas I want to pursue, but the current unsettledness makes it hard to find the time and energy to sort them out and choose which to act on.
The discoveries of my twenties have left me trying to balance two competing needs: to create meaningful, ambitious work and to build a life that supports my family and preserves my physical and mental health. I don’t yet know whether I need meditation, therapy, a life coach, or simply time alone to reflect, or if some of these questions are never fully answered.
If my twenties taught me anything, it’s that I can’t do everything. My hope for my thirties is that they’ll be about learning what I can — and want to — do, and leaning into those things with clarity and intention.
Thank you for sticking with me as I navigate this messy, beautiful process of living publicly while figuring things out privately. This community has reminded me I’m not alone, and I’m grateful for the chance to show others they aren’t alone either.
This is 30.