Thirty is probably the biggest milestone birthday since my sweet sixteen. I mean obviously I have had birthdays since then and sure, some of them felt big, but thirty feels like it carries with it a lot more significance. Being thirty feels like I should be a grown up. Like should have at least some things together. Like I should be able to look at my life, in its broad strokes and see....something taking shape.
My twenties were, to say the least, tumultuous. I moved across the globe - twice. I had my heart broken - twice. I thought I had my career figured out only to realize that it wasn't what I wanted at all, and had to start something new from scratch. People have come and gone in surprising ways and relationships with friends and family are completely different at this end of the decade than the beginning of it. If you had asked the 20-year-old version of myself where I would be at 29...it would be no where near where I am.
Likewise, I see a lot of my 29/30 year old friends doing things with their lives and I wonder if that is what I want. I see pictures of babies and weddings on Facebook, world travels and news of promotions. I try on those lives in my head for a few moments and wonder how well they might fit. How do I want my life to look?
That was really the question that motivated this project. I want my life to reflect things that I believe in and value. I want to have things to show for what I do and who I am. I had heard of the "Thirty before Thirty" list before and thought it was cool. But my problem with some of the approaches others took was that doing things like dancing in Rio or seeing the Pyramids wouldn't change my life. Sure, they would be very cool experiences, but at the end of those really nifty thirty things would I have learned anything about myself? Challenged myself? Changed my life (hopefully) for the better? Not really.
Then there are the items that are completely outside of my control. Would I like to fall in love and get married by the time I'm Thirty - sure! Can I do anything to make that happen - nope! Some things in life have to just happen in their own time, and I am okay with that. Giving myself a deadline for things to happen that just might not, through no fault of my own, is just plain dumb. So only do-able goals made the cut.
My Thirty before Thirty list is about change. Not changing myself into something else, but changing my life so that it reflects a better version of myself. Change, for a control freak like me, is not easy. So while some of the items on my list aren't "big" they are BIG in my mind. Some of them about about trying new things, some are about overcoming one of my biggest challenges - following through, and some are just about getting things done that need to be done. The list as a whole though is something that I think/hope will make me live this next year with purpose.
So that is the project! Thirty items that need to be done by September 8, 2013.
Gulp.
