Last week I was on the elliptical at my gym (where I do most of my introspective thinking) and it suddenly hit me once again that in a week’s time I would no longer be in my twenties. Despite myself, I started to silently cry. I quickly pulled myself together and quelled the tears because, not only was it an inappropriate context, but I’d also just gotten lash extensions and figured the salt water wouldn’t be good for them.
It is safe to say that I am going through a ⅓ life crisis. Some days the anxiety is so crippling that I can barely function. My friends have all become personal therapists, and my therapist is turning into a friend. 29 was a rough year and there has been a lot that I’ve been working through. For one thing, I found myself single. Two weeks before our fourth anniversary, KB and I broke up. The thing that I had spent countless hours over the years obsessively fearing could someday happen, happened. I had always imagined that it would kill me but it didn’t. I oscillated between shock and grief, and spent weeks trying to come to terms with my new reality.
I moved out of my chic two-bedroom downtown condo into a studio apartment with no dishwasher and quarter laundry machines. The quarter laundry machines might actually be the most tragic part of the whole story. On top of all that there was the pandemic and the job I don’t love, and the student debt, and the overall political state of the world, and the sudden recurrence of my OCD and, here’s the kicker, the daunting prospect of my impending thirtieth birthday.
Though there were a lot of times when I didn’t know how I could, I hung in there, largely thanks to the support of my friends, parents and sisters who all, for some reason, continued to take my crazed calls. Eventually I downloaded some dating apps, updated my LinkedIn account, and decided that a good goal for my thirties would to become a Southern California weather girl so that all the clubbing dresses I acquired over the last decade wouldn’t have to go to waste. I booked weekly therapy sessions, freshened up my highlights and started splurging on somewhat frequent pedicures. I started reading for pleasure and binging drama series’ in the evenings, plus signed up for a new volunteer position, and began applying for jobs more aligned with my interests. In short, I have been successfully adulting. In some ways.
In other ways, not so much. Take my sudden propensity to go out with younger men, which I fully blame on the ⅓ life crisis. I am by no means necessarily looking for anything serious again just yet (San Diego is not a bad place to be single), but I’m enjoying getting out and meeting new people, and not all of them are my usual “type”. Anyone who knew me before the KB days knows that when I was in my early twenties, I tended towards men nearly twice my age, the mature, professorial, silver fox types. Now here I am, practically a spinster myself, going out with younger men? Well, I will say that it can be fun.
For instance, a few weeks ago I met up with a 25 year-old at a beachy dive bar to shoot pool. I have “shot pool” maybe once in my life and I totally suck, but I found myself laughing all night as he sucked on his vape with his shaggy surfer hair poking out from under his backwards cap. He danced around the table, singing along to the music and taking my hand seductively. It was a Sunday evening but he was tossing back beers like Monday morning didn’t exist. Everything felt so carefree. Eventually it got pretty late and we got hungry, so we stopped by a taco shop for take-out and went back to his house (I drove, as he was car-less and tipsy). On the way there he told me about his roommate, a 45 year-old former Deadhead. The apartment complex was literally 20 feet from the sand, an ideal location, and the night air smelled like salt as we walked from my car. The interior was sparsely decorated, a typical bachelor pad, but thankfully not dirty. There were a few succulents, a couch, t.v., table, and some posters of old bands pinned up. And there, in the center of the living room wall, was a wine rack. This rack did not hold a single bottle of wine. However, balanced on the top wrung of the rack perched a single box of Franzia, and that was when I knew I could not stay. There are plenty of activities that are still acceptable to partake in at age 30. Slapping the bag isn’t one of them. No, Queen.
As is often the case, I didn’t learn my lesson the first time. Weeks later another younger gentleman I had matched with on Hinge asked me whether I’d like to Facetime one night, and I thought, why not? I’d just had my lashes done after all, and could get away with no make-up, so he called and we had a perfectly short and sweet chat, agreeing to possibly make plans to meet up sometime soon. Not seconds after the call ended, I got a message.
“So, you down to Netflix and Chill? Or you not that type of gal?”
To be honest, I wasn’t even offended, more just amused. Like, don’t you even want to see me in person before committing to a shag, young man? Needless to say, things went no further. I’m not so young and naive not to know what it is that men really want. But I’m also not so jaded to be okay with them putting in no effort to even pretend that chivalry exists.
So, anyway, as the big “Dirty Thirty” day got closer, I got increasingly anxious about leaving my twenties behind. At the same time, though, I was beyond excited about the chance to celebrate with my forever loyal and always extravagant group of friends who were coming into town from all over California just to make me feel special. And as it turned out, it really was kind of the perfect birthday. Certainly one for the books.
We rented out a few hotel rooms in Downtown San Diego and when I walked in my friends surprised me by having them completely decked out in Rose Gold birthday streamers, balloons and signs. We sipped champagne in the hot tub all afternoon, then went out to an amazing Italian meal, complete with my name on a marquee and complimentary Chocolate Gelato topped with a birthday candle. We dressed to the nines and stayed out at the clubs dancing with no inhibitions until they closed, ending up at an after party that lasted until 4:30 am. Eventually we made it back to our own hotel to end the night the right way. If you’ve never eaten carrot cake drunk in the bathtub with your best friend at 6 in morning, have you really even lived? I couldn’t have asked for anything more.
When the weekend finally came to an end I went back to life as usual, and so far things seem to be going okay. Perhaps life does not end at 30. Who knows? Maybe I’ll even still meet a man, buy a house, land my dream job, even summer in the Hamptons and watch my little Harper and Beckett run around in their matching argyle rompers whilst I sip Chandon and eat crab cakes on a Tuesday afternoon and my husband goes off sailing with the Senator. In the meantime, this single broad fully intends to make the the most of life in her thirties, quaint as it may be. She’ll discreetly collect the quarters she spots on the sidewalk so that she can save up for laundry. She’ll vow to use the stove and cook a real dinner at least once a week. She’ll keep her roots at bay, her eyebrows shaped and her toenails polished. Occasionally she’ll hit up the clubs downtown, never without her prescription glasses and a bottle of tums in her clutch, a fridge full of Pedialyte and two Advil waiting for her at home.
Not, The End.
