Imagine a big suitcase full stuffed to the brim with random clothing, knick-knacks, granola bars, etc. It’s bursting at the seams and the wheels are kinda broke so it makes a scraping sound when you roll it places. All that junk represents the issues of your 20’s.

Now imagine that you’re at the gates of thirty-something-dom. The doors open and the gate-keeper says you must leave this suitcase at the door.

What’s inside the suitcase? Are you okay with letting it go?

Here’s what was in my suitcase and what I recommend you should let go too.

1) Crappy Friends. The kind that aren’t genuinely happy for you when good things happen in your life. The kind that make you feel bad about yourself after hanging out with them. Like George Washington said, “It is better to be alone than in bad company.”

2) Bad boys. The kind that don’t call when they say they will. And when they do, you somehow feel ‘lucky’ they called. The kind that can’t commit after eight months of dating. That kind that make you feel like you’re constantly playing games.

3) Days Lost to Hangovers. It’s not worth it. It’s just not. And okay, can’t say I’ve totally, 100% left these days behind, BUT for the most part, I rarely lose a day to a hangover. Maybe two days a year.

4) Being Tolerated and not Celebrated. I read this quote recently, and it resonated with me. “Go Where You Are Celebrated, Not Where You Are Tolerated.” This includes in workplaces, relationships, friends, extra-curriculars, etc. Find your tribe. They are out there and trust me, they are worth finding.

5) Saying Yes When You Want to Say No. Your time is valuable. Really damn valuable. So ignore the “should’s” (“I should go to that party, but I really want to stay in and read tonight.”) and go with the “want to’s” instead.

Are you in the age range of 28-30, 56-60 or 84-90? Then say a nice warm welcome to the planet Saturn, for he is returning to say hi to you and teach you a lesson or three!

A Saturn Return is an astrological transit that means that Saturn is returning to the same point in the sky that it occupied at the time of your birth. If you’re into astrology at all, read on.

Saturn can be quite the pokey planet, so a Saturn Return only occurs around every 28-30 years or so. Most people are happy about this because while Jupiter is known to be the planet of luck, happiness and abundance, Saturn is the harsher planet of maturity and learning life’s lessons.  Therefore, people can get quite scared of Saturn returning with his occasionally rough teachings.

You can only get about 3 saturn returns in your lifetime, (4 if you’re lucky and live till 116 -and you never know, medical technology is getting better all the time), but the first one at around age 28-30 will probably come as the biggest shock. A major lesson or turning point is supposed to hit you hard during this time. No matter how unpleasant, Saturn returning means it’s time to tuck your head and bravely get through the storm.

I used to work for a pretty amazing astrologer. She’s been working with astrology and writing about it for over 25 years, has written a few books and multiple magazine columns, and has a very famous website. I learned a lot from her. But the biggest thing I remember was wondering about this mysterious Saturn Return. I was only 22 at the time and I saw so many people write in to her and ask about it. Sometimes they wouldn’t realize it was even happening until they told her their age. Then they’d realize that whatever crazy thing they were going through just happened to coincide with their Saturn Return.

Now, the astrologer’s response to Saturn Return worriers was always very positive. She would tell people that Saturn teaches his lessons for a reason. Sometimes there are things you need to learn in order for you to grow. It may seem harsh, but Saturn Returns help you to mature and change the things that aren’t working anymore. And so, in a way, Saturn Returns are extremely beneficial.

That’s not to say that they aren’t difficult. Since I’ve just turned 30, I’m getting to the end of my Saturn Return and it was quite possibly the most difficult time in my life. That doesn’t mean Saturn Returns always have to be so tough, but I guess I was pretty darn resistant to learning its lessons. I hope in the future I’m able to implement as much as I can of what Saturn tried to teach me in the past year.

Sometimes a stranger articulates something about yourself better than you ever could.

I work part-time at the college library doing social media. It provides me with much needed extra cash and I happen to love the job. While most of my job involves me sitting in front of my computer brainstorming witty library related things to say or scouring local events to post, occasionally a lost student will wander into the staff area looking for help. I especially love these moments, mainly cause  I like the human interaction and it’s a nice respite from staring at a screen.

The other day, one of those students wandered in. She approached me and immediately it was clear she didn’t speak English well, as I had no idea what she was saying. She looked to be Chinese and about my age, somewhere in her early 30’s. (At UCLA, we have a huge international student population, so it’s very common to have lots of bi-lingual students.) After a few botched attempts of mis-interpreting her, and thinking she was asking for the “coffee” machine, I eventually realized she was talking about the “copier” machine. She was asking me to take her to the area in the library with copiers.

So, as an excuse to stretch my legs and because I realized there was no way she was going to understand my directions, which involve several twists and turns through a very large library, I get up and say, “I’ll take you there.” As we walked together through the library, I engaged her in some small talk. Since she appeared to be around my age, I asked her if she was a graduate student. She nodded and said yes, she was studying mechanical engineering. I told her she picked a good field, and made some quip that she would definitely have jobs waiting for her after school! She seemed to agree with me.

She asked what I studied, and I said I was a graduate student in screenwriting. Writing for the movies. It took her a second to process what I had said, and then she smiled sweetly and said, “Oh, you do it for the beauty.”

And I just felt…well, understood, I guess. The whole summer I was worried about if I would ever sell a script or get a job on a writing staff of a TV show, thinking about MONEY and how I would live, and in one instant, I was reminded, that’s ultimately it’s not about that. I’m here to make something of beauty – something that allows us to connect to each other as human beings. I know, it’s corny, but there’s truth there. My aim was never to make lots of money from something, it was to create something beautiful.

So, thank you stranger in the library.

It was actually hard to find 30 quotes about being in your 30’s. I mean, there are a ton of sayings about being over the hill and ‘older than dirt’ at 30, but I didn’t really enjoy those so I didn’t bother listing them. If you google ‘being 30’ or look at any birthday greeting card, you’ll easily find the negatives, though.  They’re the majority…ah, we live in such an ageist society.

I ended up having to broaden my list to include more funny quotes, thought-provoking quotes, book quotes, quotes from current celebrities and inspirational speakers. That helped. Attention writers: the world needs more quotes about being 30! (Update: We actually made a coloring book with our favorite thirties quotes!) Here’s a list of my favorites in no particular order:

1. 30 is three perfect 10’s. -Anonymous
2. 30 was the best year of my life until the next year and then the next. Every year since 30 has been the best year. -Bonnidette Lantz
3. Everything I know I learned after I was thirty. -Georges Clemenceau.
4. A woman over 30 will never wake you in the middle of the night to ask, “What are you thinking?”. She doesn’t care what you think.  -Andy Rooney.
5. At 20 years of age the will reigns, at 30 the wit, at 40 the judgement. – Benjamin Franklin
6. 30 was so strange for me. I really had to come to terms with the fact that I’m now a walking, talking adult. -CS Lewis
7. I didn’t write any fiction until I was past thirty. -Grace Paley
8. Hollywood called just as I crested thirty. My novels did not and still do not interest them, but my writing ability did. -Rita Mae Brown
9. There’s an ‘Everything must go!’ emotional liquidation feel to the end of your twenties, isn’t there? What will happen if we turn thirty and we’re not ‘ready?’ You don’t feel entirely settled in any aspect of your life, even if you are on paper. -Sloane Crosley
10. Many a man who has known himself at ten forgets himself utterly between ten and thirty. – Catherine Drinker Bowen
11. At age 30, one receives strength. -Talmud
12. Thirty five is a very attractive age; London society is full of women who have of their own free choice remained thirty-five for years. -Oscar Wilde
13. “It doesn’t have to be on Valentine’s Day. It doesn’t have to be by the time you turn eighteen or thirty-three or fifty-nine. It doesn’t have to conform to whatever is usual. It doesn’t have to be kismet at once, or rhapsody by the third date.It just has to be. In time. In place. In spirit. It just has to be.” -David Levithan
14. I wish I was a woman of about thirty-six dressed in black satin with a string of pearls. -Daphne Du Maurier (Rebecca)
15. You can be gorgeous at thirty, charming at forty, and irresistible for the rest of your life. -Coco Channel
16. There is only one way to read, which is to browse in libraries and bookshops, picking up books that attract you, reading only those, dropping them when they bore you, skipping the parts that drag-and never, never reading anything because you feel you ought, or because it is part of a trend or a movement. Remember that the book which bores you when you are twenty or thirty will open doors for you when you are forty or fifty-and vise versa. Don’t read a book out of its right time for you. -Doris Lessing
17. The truth is, part of me is every age. I’m a three-year-old, I’m a five-year-old, I’m a thirty-seven-year-old, I’m a fifty-year-old. I’ve been through all of them, and I know what it’s like. I delight in being a child when it’s appropriate to be a child. I delight in being a wise old man when it’s appropriate to be a wise old man. Think of all I can be! I am every age, up to my own. -Mitch Albom (Tuesdays With Morrie)
18. Thirty-nine is a sweet number. It’s thirteen times three. It’s also the sum of five prime numbers in a row – 3,5,7,11,13. And if you add the first three powers of three, 3 to the first, 3 to the second, and s to the third, you get thirty-nine. -Rick Riordin (The Maze of Bones)
19. Thirty was a big deal for me. It was the age where I reevaluated everything – how I approached life and how I thought about myself. – Amy Adams
20. I just came into my own sexuality at thirty. I don’t think it’s something you can deeply experience at 18 or any time before that. -Eva Longoria
21. It is a truth universally acknowledged that a thirty-something woman in possession of a satisfying career and fabulous hairdo must be in want of very little. -Shannon Hale (Austenland)
22. Travel is “Maybe I don’t have to do it that way when I get back home.” It’s nostalgia for studying abroad that one semester. Travel is realizing that “age thirty” should be shed of its goddamn stigma.” -Nick Miller
23. I was thirty-seven years old and still discovering who I was.” -Julia Child
24. Some we know to be dead even though they walk among us; some are not yet born though they go through all the forms of life; other are hundreds of years old though they call themselves thirty-six. -Virginia Woolf
25. They were all in their early thirties. An age at which it is sometimes hard to admit that what you are living is your life. -Alice Munro
26. I prefer sinners and madmen, who can learn, who can change, who can teach-or people like myself, if I may say so, who are not afraid to eat a lobster alone as they take on their shoulders the monumental weight of thirty years. -James Baldwin
27. When I turned 30, I was done with Thousand Island dressing. I have moved on to Island Number 1001.
 -Jarod Kintz
28. The Master said, At fifteen I set my heart upon learning.
    At thirty, I had planted my feet firm upon the ground.
    At forty, I no longer suffered from perplexities.
    At fifty, I knew what were the biddings of Heaven.
    At sixty, I heard them with docile ear.
    At seventy, I could follow the dictates of my own heart; for what I desired no longer overstepped the boundaries of right. -Confucious
29. Basically, I realized I was living in that awful stage of life between twenty-six to and thirty-seven known as stupidity. It’s when you don’t know anything, not even as much as you did when you were younger, and you don’t even have a philosophy about all the things you don’t know, the way you did when you were twenty or would again when you were thirty-eight. -Lorrie Moore
30. She didn’t feel thirty. But then again again, what was being thirty supposed to feel like? When she was younger, thirty seemed so far away, she thought that a woman of that age would be so wise and knowledgeable, so settled in her life with a husband and children and a career. She had none of those things. She still felt as clueless as she had felt when she was twenty, only with a few more gray hairs and crow’s feet around her eyes.- Cecilia Ahern

We’ve recently (July 2017) made a coloring book with all 30 of these quotes! If you’re looking for a gift for your thirty-something year old friends, the book is beautiful, fun, and a perfect birthday present! Here’s a link to the 30 Quotes About the 30’s coloring book. And this is a link to a black background version of the book. Enjoy!

This post was originally titled “Who Am I At 30?” I had to change the name because it paralyzed me with fear.

Who am I at any point? Every day I feel different. I almost didn’t write this post today because I wasn’t in a writing mode. That may change tomorrow- and so maybe tomorrow would be a better day to write this post.

I’m writing today anyway. Today is always the best day to write a post, dammit.

So who am I at 30? I don’t know if I know the answer any better than my 29 year old self did. I’m a collection of things…I even made a list in preparation to write this post. It went:

I’m extremely reliable
Family and friend oriented
All about dependability- flakiness= sadness
A traveler
Introvert who wants to be an extrovert
Vegetarian
Kind, but my neutral face looks mean- fools people
A runner
Happiest when I’m helping someone
Most content on 7.5 hours of sleep or more, preferably from 1am to 9am
Drawn to meditation

Little things:
A lover of water bottles with built in straws
Perpetual pasta craver
Obsessed with talking about cities I’d love to visit
Summer = best season
Lover of lists- to-do lists are especially good.

I don’t know if that list even starts to answer the question “Who am I at 30?” But I think it scratches the surface of the question “Who is 30 to me?”

Who are you, 30???

On all previous birthdays, I’ve asked myself: What is new about this age? Am I any different than the year before? The answer has usually been “I don’t feel any different.’ Yet 30 feels different. It has its expectations. There are stigmas here. Milestones. Landmines.  It feels like uncharted territory in a way the twenties have never felt. To me, 30 is a stereotype, the top of a never-ending mountain, the shadowy cloaked figure that means “real life adult.” And then it also means “that’s not true at all!” I know tons of people in their 30s and 40s who are completely different than the stereotypes suggest.

One of my favorite quotes has always been “wherever you go, there you are.” Even when I feel like I’m getting away from everything I call home, I realized quite a few years back that I’m still always taking myself along with me. It was an interesting lesson to learn. Relating that quote to my 30th birthday, I’m starting to think the new lesson is: “However you grow, there you are.” Ok, that’s corny…because, you know, because I was trying to phrase it the same, whatever… But the point is that even though you’re always ending up at an older age, there you are.

And so here I am at 30. On the precipice of something that feels uncharted, unclear, undetermined. I’m either at the end of something that’s barely begun, or the beginning of something that’s barely ended. But it’s still me. Yes, that feels right. I’m here, 30! I’m somewhere in there.

Granted I’m only 2.5 years into my 30’s, but if I had to put it into one word, the 30’s for me is about all about “priorities.” With less free time, I’ve had to really decide what to spend my hours on.

One of the definitions of the word priority is:

“The right to take precedence or to proceed before others.”

I love that definition because it’s easy to forget that you have the right to set your own priorities. Your priorities should not be dictated by the demands others place on you. I mean, you have to WORK to pay your rent and bills, but there’s also a ton of free time in your day. Many times, you can choose the sort of work you do.

The thing is, if you don’t set your priorities, others will set them for you. You know that shitty feeling when you’re getting ready for bed, and you look back at all you’ve done during the day, and recognize that you did nothing to further your own personal goals? Maybe you were just on the treadmill of unfulfilling job, food, sleep, shower, etc? Well, that’s a depressing feeling and for me, it’s happened more often than I’d like to admit.

In my own life, I’ve found that by setting my own personal priorities recently, the following shifts have happened in my life:

1) Sacrificed the amount of friends I have for the quality of those friendships.

2) Only taken jobs that I feel good about even if I make much less money.

3) Identified and accepted core truths about myself that have informed how I live my life (i.e. – I need and love a lot of alone time, and sometimes that means I sacrifice a “networking” opportunity for QT time with myself.)

What are your own personal priorities? Have they shifted as you’ve moved into your 30’s?