I saw an acquaintance of mine yesterday who I hadn’t seen in over 3 years. She congratulated me on this blog and told me that she wanted to talk about how different things started feeling now that she’s in her late thirties- 36 to be exact.

She does what I do- she’s a presenter and product specialist. In our industry, it’s your job to look young and healthy, so she told me that she’s always told that she looks younger than thirty. However, it’s not her looks that necessarily felt different (although we both admitted that we do feel like we look different than we did in our twenties..what’s interesting about that is that even if you look good and young in your thirties, there’s a more mature quality about your looks too..or at least that’s what we concurred on.)

What felt different to her about the thirties was an almost invisible quality- she said that she was thinking differently. We didn’t get to talk about this in too much detail, but I feel like I definitely think differently in my thirties as well. It’s not just the obvious possible fear thoughts that women in their thirties may have – ‘will I ever get married?’ ‘Is there more to life than having children?’ ‘Why am I not at the top of my career yet?’ There’s a certain degree of experience that makes itself known in my thoughts as a thirty-something. I know my likes and dislikes more. I’ve been burned a few times, and I don’t trust as easily. There’s a certain ‘here we go again’ thought process that occurs lately that wasn’t there before. Sometimes it’s great- like when I start work on a project and can navigate its pitfalls like a pro. Sometimes it’s not so great- like when I meet a new person and red flags go off from the first conversation.

I don’t exactly know what to make of these new thought processes in my thirties. Somehow I always thought that I’d be exactly the same as I was in my twenties- but I don’t know why I thought that. The thirties have changed things.

What do you guys think? Is there a been there, done that feeling in your thirties? People that set off old alarms? Less naiveté? Let us know your thoughts.

Today, at 31 years old, training day for CES (Consumer Electronics Show) and thinking back on all the CES’s from my twenties. Am I super different now?