1. It is no longer acceptable or appropriate to get completely shitfaced on red wine and puke all over your friends white carpet. Or to have to scrub the bathroom floor while hung over because you thought you were puking into the toilet. Not cool. I’m just hypothetically speaking here, of course.

2. You value your true friends more than ever. You learn how hard it is to make new friends. Once you’re an adult and have a family, life gets complicated, but you will always need your BFF’s. It doesn’t matter how far away you live, or how much time passes in between, you miss them and try make time for them when you can.

3. Even though there’s no denying that once you hit 30 you’ve been an “adult” for awhile, you realize that feeling like a “grown-up” is a myth. You never actually feel in your head as old as what your birthday candles say you are. And that’s OK. (That is, until you hang out with a group of 21-year-olds, then you totally feel your age.)

4. Sometimes adulting is boring. Being an adult is filled with lots of responsibilities and sometimes it feels monotonous. A large majority of the day is filled with doing things you “have” to do, like housework, picking up toy after toy after toy, paying bills, then going to bed early just to get up early for work and doing it all over again. That’s just a part of life.

5. Add kids onto to number three, and there’s not much free time leftover for anything. It takes planning, organizing, and usually some lack of sleep to still have date nights with your spouse or any alone time, not to mention still trying to have a social life.

6. You realize your life really is what you choose to make of it. It’s easy to get carried away with going to college, starting a career, getting married, buying a house, and having kids. Then suddenly, somewhere in your 30’s, you might decide you aren’t where you want to be or have accomplished what you wanted in some aspect of life, and you decide to make a change. New job, divorce, going back to school, or deciding to pursue a passion you never took the time to do. I’ve seen each of these things from someone in my life after 30. Life is always changing, and it’s never too late to do what you’ve always wanted or to be who you want to be. In fact, there’s that feeling creeping in of “it’s now or never. This body ain’t getting any younger.” Which brings us to…

7. Your body starts aching and getting sore for no reason. It’s a little harder to get up off the floor now, your knees and ankles crack. Did you play a game of volleyball with a group of friends yesterday? It was fun at the time, wasn’t it? You felt young and fun and athletic! But today your body will be paying for it hardcore! 

8. It takes twice as much effort to lose weight compared to your twenties. Don’t even get me started on swimsuit shopping! I eat a bowl of ice cream and it goes straight to my leftover baby bump and love handles. No sir, I am not pregnant, I just like ice cream, ok!?

9. You don’t give as much f*ck what the rest of the world thinks of you. I realized this one after I had my first kid. Nothing else in the world felt as important as my new tiny infant who depended on me for everything. You start to gain a new type of confidence in yourself in your 30’s. You slowly stop caring so much about the opinion of strangers, and more what your close friends and family’s opinions are. You make decisions based on what is best for you and your family, and are not out to prove yourself or to please others.

10. You have experienced death, and it has changed you. You probably have lost at least one grandparent, friend, or parent by now, which makes you value your time and life in a new way. Death of someone close to us makes us re-examine the way we live are living our life, and reminds us how short our time on earth truly is.  It also makes you hold your loved ones a little closer and always tell them how much you love them.

Even though there are many hard lessons we learn as we get older, my 30’s have been full of learning about myself and about life. I’m building confidence as a person, and learning it is never too late to make a change in life. We can be whoever we want to be. And our friends and family that make up our support system are what life is all about. Have fun with life, soak up the sweet stuff, because life is way too short to be miserable or to take yourself too seriously.

As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts about getting older and some of the lessons you’ve learned along the way.

Peace and Love, Leah