Forever 21

I’ll be thirty next year. As will roughly fifty percent of the people I know. And I’m about the only one who isn’t dreading it. Everyone else wants to be twenty-one again. I’m afraid I just don’t get it. What did I miss?

I don’t remember there being anything so great about being twenty-one. Twenty one was the year that I sat my finals, left the cosy bubble of education and had to get my first proper job. Being twenty-one sucked.

Any of the great things that happened during the year that I was twenty-one I’ve made sure to also have happen in the years since.

But this year I also know what I’m doing every day when I go to work, instead of just pretending and worrying someone was going to find out. I have money, so that I can actually do all of the things that I could only afford to talk about doing when I was twenty-one. And now I can sleep soundly, safe in the knowledge that no-one is going to time me to write an essay ever again.

Being older is awesome.

Not to mention that the month after I turn thirty I’ll have been at my company for long enough to be able to take a sabbatical and have them keep my job open for me. So I’m finally going to take a gap year and travel round South America.

Maybe I don’t mind turning thirty because I’m still twenty-one in my head…