When you turn 30 you’ll just stop caring.
When I was 25 I had an older, “wiser” friend. She had turned 32 during the one year that we were close. She would often tell me that when you turned 30 you “stopped caring”. About what you ask? About everything she’d answer, so blasé, so carefree ( this girl was literally the opposite of those things but that’s not for this blog). We stopped being friends before my 26th birthday (still in my 20s I had big feelings about this) and we’ve never reconnected. However, her 30th birthday warning stuck with me and upon turning 30 myself and living through the past 9.5 years I have thought about what she said and spoken about it with others. A lot. She’s not totally wrong and she’s definitely not totally right, at all.
When I turned 30 I didn’t stop caring. I am a person who cares, A LOT, and I have big feelings. That said, I stopped thinking I was so special. Now, before you all get fussy, we are all special unique snowflake unicorn sparkle stars. By not special I mean that I started realize that in my 20s I was very self conscious and negatively self aware. I assumed that everyone around me had a perfectly clean apartment, paid every bill on time, made all of the proper yearly doctors appointments, followed a skin care routine, worked out and liked it, cooked healthy, gourmet meals, packed lunches, woke up early, went to bed early, invested, had portion control, drank a gallon of water a day, didn’t pick at their face, the list goes on…. I truly believed that most people just innately knew how to do things, general adulting things and I just didn’t. Here’s the reality: I did do some of these of things really well and there is an additional list of things that I am awesome at BUT I am terrible at some these things and in my 20s it was my greatest fear to be found out (although I assume most of you knew). In my 30s I started to realize that no one has it all together, not the people making a ton of money, not the group that got married at 28, not the ones who already have kids, not the fabulous girls with the perfect apartments- everyone is not getting something done and is keeping that on the DL. I have loved that in my 30s everyone has (for the most part) given up on their bullshit and will own their “shortcomings”. Discussing our past secrets bonds us and bring us closer together. So let me give my former friend some credit - I did stop caring. I stopped caring and worrying that I was weird and that people would judge me and dislike me for not making my bed the minute I wake up and not being able to hang until 2am, being really bad about seeing the dentist or take 6am Barry’s bootcamp. If that makes me wrong, then you were right, I don’t care.