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Me, I mean.

What I mean is, I turned 30 years old yesterday.

As you can tell from the birthday hat headband my friend Kat provided, 30, I think, carries with it a tactile sense of reaching a milestone for most everyone, for better or worse. Growing up, I remember 30 as the age women would point back to as a sort of beginning of the end - metabolisms slowing (“the second I turned 30,” they would say), bones aching in new ways, waking up with cricks in necks and pain in backs, plus that whole “women are more likely to be killed by a terrorist than find a husband over 30” anecdote that we are all better off forgetting.

I find it almost laughable to reconcile these comments with the feeling of sheer expansion and possibility my body is carrying into this birthday. Waking up 30, I did feel different somehow. But it seemed more like going from sparkling rosé to merlot than from the land of the living to the crypt. That feeling inspired me to write this for myself as a sort of mile marker. A line in the sand to look back on who I was the first day of my third decade on this unlikely and impossibly beautiful spinning rock we call Earth. I am writing it also in defiance of those childhood messages, and staking claim on the rich maturity, freedom, and confidence that only time seems able to provide.

So, at 30, here am I -

Hopelessly in love. The kind of love about which they write the books and make the films. The kind that feels impossible until you find yourself in it. At 30, I know for sure that love can be passionate and sexy and full as well as safe and sweet and intimate. That these things are not mutually exclusive. That one can actually fuel the other and exist in tandem in a way that feels sometimes too big for your body to hold and yet in the holding, your soul swells to new heights and depths ceaselessly.

At 30, I have a glimpse of just how vast love can be.

And at 30, for the first time in my life, to the depths of my marrow, I believe (not merely know) that life really is about love. Anything done without love and for any reason other than love is a clanging cymbal and a waste of time.

I will officially never be on a 30 under 30 list. I have absolutely nothing figured out. AI is writing songs now. It’s a matter of time before its songs are as good as mine. I’ve never been less sure of where the current is leading me or more aware of all that I don’t know, all the wisdom I don’t possess, the inability of my finite mind to grasp the infinite. And though the future is still stretching wide open before me, today, at 30, I know not fame nor riches nor trophies on my shelves nor plaques on my walls.

But I know love. With my feet in his lap as I type. With my friends who threw me a surprise party (which was not much of a surprise for the sole reason that no one tried to plan anything with me and I knew they wouldn’t let 30 simply pass - a further testament to the friendships that have kept me afloat and alive all this time. Gosh I adore them); they cannot be earned by success or talent and cannot be lost with the lack of it. With my mother and grandmother who really just want to play Settlers of Catan and laugh together. With the King of the universe who calls me daughter. With countless others with countless impressions and lessons and memories.

At 30, I know these things; small, yet great, and indeed what I hope will make up my next 30 years.

Thanks for reading cross-legged on the bed! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

  • 30.

    Me, I mean.

    What I mean is, I turned 30 years old yesterday.

    As you can tell from the birthday hat headband my friend Kat provided, 30, I think, carries with it a tactile sense of reaching a milestone for most everyone, for better or worse. Growing up, I remember 30 as the age women would point back to as a sort of beginning of the end - metabolisms slowing (“the second I turned 30,” they would say), bones aching in new ways, waking up with cricks in necks and pain in backs, plus that whole “women are more likely to be killed by a terrorist than find a husband over 30” anecdote that we are all better off forgetting.

    I find it almost laughable to reconcile these comments with the feeling of sheer expansion and possibility my body is carrying into this birthday. Waking up 30, I did feel different somehow. But it seemed more like going from sparkling rosé to merlot than from the land of the living to the crypt. That feeling inspired me to write this for myself as a sort of mile marker. A line in the sand to look back on who I was the first day of my third decade on this unlikely and impossibly beautiful spinning rock we call Earth. I am writing it also in defiance of those childhood messages, and staking claim on the rich maturity, freedom, and confidence that only time seems able to provide.

    So, at 30, here am I -

    Hopelessly in love. The kind of love about which they write the books and make the films. The kind that feels impossible until you find yourself in it. At 30, I know for sure that love can be passionate and sexy and full as well as safe and sweet and intimate. That these things are not mutually exclusive. That one can actually fuel the other and exist in tandem in a way that feels sometimes too big for your body to hold and yet in the holding, your soul swells to new heights and depths ceaselessly.

    At 30, I have a glimpse of just how vast love can be.

    And at 30, for the first time in my life, to the depths of my marrow, I believe (not merely know) that life really is about love. Anything done without love and for any reason other than love is a clanging cymbal and a waste of time.

    I will officially never be on a 30 under 30 list. I have absolutely nothing figured out. AI is writing songs now. It’s a matter of time before its songs are as good as mine. I’ve never been less sure of where the current is leading me or more aware of all that I don’t know, all the wisdom I don’t possess, the inability of my finite mind to grasp the infinite. And though the future is still stretching wide open before me, today, at 30, I know not fame nor riches nor trophies on my shelves nor plaques on my walls.

    But I know love. With my feet in his lap as I type. With my friends who threw me a surprise party (which was not much of a surprise for the sole reason that no one tried to plan anything with me and I knew they wouldn’t let 30 simply pass - a further testament to the friendships that have kept me afloat and alive all this time. Gosh I adore them); they cannot be earned by success or talent and cannot be lost with the lack of it. With my mother and grandmother who really just want to play Settlers of Catan and laugh together. With the King of the universe who calls me daughter. With countless others with countless impressions and lessons and memories.

    At 30, I know these things; small, yet great, and indeed what I hope will make up my next 30 years.

    Thanks for reading cross-legged on the bed! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

    https://www.jordynshellhart.com/news/30-1016
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