“Once you figure out who you are and what you love about yourself, I think it all kinda falls into place.” – J.A
So I have heard, your thirties are supposed to be much better than your twenties. All of the articles I’ve read say how you feel more confident in your own skin, you’ve learnt from all the mistakes you made in your twenties…yarda yarda yarda…
Anyway at the beginning of this month I turned thirty! I thought about doing a blog of 30 achievements I have made in my life so far but it didn’t seem to fit.
So instead I’ve made a list of 30 things I am going to let go of in my thirties. Pressures, expectations and unrealistic goals that I am going to put in my ‘Fuckit Bucket’ and move on…
1. The mini-skirt in my wardrobe – I will keep you forever and always but I think it’s safe to say that I am never going to be able to wear you again. If I am ever slim enough to fit in you I am almost positive you are way to perky to be worn by me. Please know that you made me feel stunning and invincible.
2. A want to be the prettiest girl in the room – I need to let go of this. It just doesn’t happen very often, and even if it occasionally does, I don’t feel like it. It’s not the be all and end all of what makes a person and I don’t need to be.
3. Not trying my hardest at Uni – This is something I have given myself so much crap for over the last eight years. But really if I went back and did it all again, knowing what I know now, I think I would probably still get arseholed most nights, miss early morning lectures, buy Subway way too often and lie in bed watching episode after episode of Sex and the City until it was time to go to the pub again.
4. Telling myself that I should stop sucking my thumb – I’m thirty, if I was going to stop I would have done by now. And to be honest I don’t even want to. Stop judging me and mind your own business.
5. Being a Mum that ‘has her shit together’ – I just don’t have it in me. Before I had kids I envisioned being a mum who made batches of home made meals and froze them in little pots when weaning, coloured and painted with their toddler daily, had a lengthly calm bath-time before snuggling up in bed reading lots of stories at bedtime. Instead it turns out I use jars of food, paint every three months for five minutes and spending four hours cleaning up the mess and vowing to never do it again, spend bath-time chasing kids trying to undress them, dip them in the tub, fight with them to get their pjs on and then throw them in bed and read them the shortest story I can find.
6. Be best friends with Jennifer Aniston
7. or pull off outfits like Rachel Green
8. Look like Jennifer Aniston
9. Or Rachel Green
10. Have a figure like Jennifer Aniston
11. or Rachel Green
^^^ These are all REALLY REALLY harsh realities for me to face
12. Closure – Life is not a Westlife song, nor is it a Hollywood movie. The majority of the time you will not get the closure that you need, or even deserve. And even if you did, it would never be enough. When your relationships in life fall apart, romantic or not, it is you who will have to make you ok again.
13. Being on the lookout for the next thing to go wrong – I distinctly remember playing at my cousin’s (quite possibly the only person who will actually read this blog-but I know at least she will) house when I was about seven years old. I had a BRILLIANT day. I got home and my Dad told me our rabbit Thumper had died. I sat in my bedroom and cried, somehow feeling like it was my fault for having had such a good day. Ever since whenever life has been going well I’ve always been on the defensive-what’s about to go wrong? I know it doesn’t really work like that. Life happens and that’s that.
14. Mental health issues – although I would love to be able to say I will let go of these in my thirties, I think for me it is much more important to let go of trying to let go of my mental health issues. I have them, they are there, I shall embrace them and learn to manage them. (They don’t know that we know they know we know.).
15. An Addictive personality – I would love to be able to say that my addictive personality is drawn towards healthy food and exercise, but instead I would say it has much more of an ‘eat every chocolate bar in the whole wide world’ and/or ‘don’t have one drink-keep going until you literally can no longer function and need to go to bed’ type of personality.
16. People pleasing – and then regretting that I’ve committed to something I don’t really want to do or taking on far more than I can manage and ending up compromising things I want for myself. It’s not selfish to put your own interests first and the more you do for people the more they expect anyway. You do you!
17. Not giving myself enough credit – I have a lot of balls in the air and I do a fucking good job of juggling them all.
18. Striving to do better – And then give myself a hard time when I am not always being productive 100% of the time, whilst simultaneously sitting on the couch eating chocolate and watching FRIENDS…
19. Leaving things unfinished and then feeling guilty about it for days, weeks, months – seriously though, I can’t think of another eleven things…