THIRTY YEARS YOUNG

When I got back to Frankfurt after the Christmas holidays, I sat down at my desk – only the second piece of flat-pack furniture I’d ever assembled, the first being the IKEA bookcase – and took three sheets of paper. Grabbing a felt pen, I boldly scrawled “WORK” atop the first page. The second bore the title “HOBBIES”. The third: “HEALTH”.

And then, after I’d put down some vague bullet points in my best handwriting (Spanish night class? Research choir. Homocysteine too high -> night sweats?) I capped my pretty pens and went to bed. The sheets lay where they were, accusatory and untouched, day after day, until I got sick of seeing them and shoved them under the coffee table to gather dust. Truth was, I was only playing at being an adult. It would be nice to be one of those girls – you know, the ones who wake up naturally at the crack of dawn and leap into lycra and a high ponytail, run six miles and meditate over green tea before the likes of me have even reached REM sleep. Hashtag goals. But, annoyingly, I’m not Pinterest Paisley, smugly ticking off her to-do list and admiring her fresh manicure. More like Late-Again Lem. I’m not a spectacular failure, but I’m still far from being the competent human being baby me imagined in the future. I think, more than anything, I’m just hanging in there and trying to do my best.

For thirteen more precious, fleeting days, I am twenty-nine. For these two weeks, I intend to oscillate between lamenting my far-too-wholesomely-spent youth and being relieved that this milestone birthday will finally be over and done with, the way you lean back, grit your teeth and silently bear a smear test. 

“It’s really not that bad,” my boyfriend said entirely reasonably. “It’s nice, in a way. Your thirties are much more settled than your twenties.” 

I grumbled, because it’s not the same for him. He happens to be very good at adulting, and while I adore him, he does unintentionally make me feel hopelessly inadequate on occasion. He is pragmatic where I am chaotic, logical where I am emotional. He throws around IKEA TV cabinet names like they’re old acquaintances, knows what bezels are, puts half his internet costs down as work expenses and possesses his very own shredder. I suppose that’s what comes of being the oldest sibling. I’m the quintessential only child who still looks around for a responsible adult every so often and realises with a sinking heart and rising sense of panic that it’s me.

Because that’s the infuriating thing about adulthood. You have to do all of it yourself. All of it. And if you happen to have moved abroad to a famously bureaucratic country in order to pursue your dream career, you have to do even more of it. The tax returns, the residency application, the Amazon order for the pipe your newly-arrived dishwasher was missing, the gas bill. You don’t get time off for good behaviour. Nobody’s going to pack your things when you shuffle off to your boyfriend’s place so you don’t wake up sans deodorant and spare knickers after an amorous tangle in the sheets. Lunch won’t materialise before your eyes if you’re stuck on a conference call. You’re the one who has to decide if you’re worried enough about the mysterious new mole on your back to get it checked out, anxiously scrolling through Google Images. 

How could my parents have been married and expecting me at thirty when just last week I had to fashion a harpoon out of a knife sellotaped to a sprig of ornamental flowers in order to spear the onion I’d dropped behind the washing machine? Do you know how often I eat cereal for dinner? Or cake? (Actually, it’s probably better you don’t…)

I don’t know why it all came as such a surprise. I was raised by adults, after all. I was a shy child and I enjoyed their company. They praised me and protected me and made me feel safe. They were all around me, moaning about petrol prices and parking spaces. Back then, I just assumed they liked talking about boring things, the same way I liked playing with plasticine or eating raw spring roll wrappers or sending my Barbie dolls bungee jumping over the bannisters on a piece of string, but that would never be me. Fast forward a couple of decades, though, and I have flashes of understanding – I see myself in them when I get excited about soft furnishings or a special offer on aubergines, or when I have to talk myself out of keeping a box because, well, it’s just a really good box. 

When I was a kid, I didn’t have rules or money, but I had time. Now I have the money and I make my own rules, but there’s just no time. 

“Do you want to see a picture of a hedgehog taped to a tray so it can have an X-ray?” my boyfriend says in our virtual chat, interrupting my existential musings. 

“Literally always,” I reply, relieved – and all of a sudden, things are light again. We’re never too old for silly things we find on the internet. We can bear children and attend funerals and still squeal and say “HORSIES!” when driving past a field. We can use sophisticated translation software at work and still have brain space left over for the names of the original 151 Pokémon. We can be childish adults or grown-up children – whichever way round, it doesn’t matter – because life may be short, but it is full of colour. I want to enjoy the little things and the big things and every other thing in between, snatching moments of pleasure wherever I can get them. It doesn’t matter that I’m not yet a published author or a wife or a mother or an entrepreneur or an influencer or anything else. I’m alive, and considering everything I’ve been through, that alone is nothing short of a miracle.

I went shopping for supplies at the weekend. My birthday party (on a Saturday, not my actual birthday, because that’s a “school night”) is going to be nineties-themed. There will be glowsticks, pizza and the soundtrack of our childhood. Gaudy garlands will deck the walls; maybe I’ll make us the folded paper fortune tellers that always used to get us in trouble in class. We’ll wear ridiculous things we once thought were the epitome of cool and leave our worries at the door, hang our cares in the coat cupboard. You only turn thirty once, after all.

It’s going to be stupid. It’s going to be great fun.

And you know what? 

I can’t wait.