This month I turn thirty. It feels equally surreal and empowering. Thirty is just another birthday but thirty is also the age that we envisioned when we were young and naive would be the age we’d have our lives together. Thirty is the age that I promised boys I’d marry them when I was fifteen if we hadn’t found partners yet! As if that would seriously be the only option left! Thirty is the age we pin hopes and dreams on but we give those hopes and dreams a much too early expiry date.

So therefore thirty is not just another birthday. It’s a pretty significant one. It’s an au revoir to our reckless years, a farewell to our youthful dreams and an adios to our dramatic outbursts. But it doesn’t have to be! My friends and I, live for the mantra “dirty, flirty and thirty” and perhaps not in the literal sense (although that’s fine too) but in the sense that these can and will be the best years of our lives.

Whether you are married at thirty, newly single, exploring your sexuality, thriving in your career or searching for a new one, thirty feels fun! It quite honestly, for me, feels young. Maybe because we are living longer. I look at my parents who are in their sixties and I think wow, you guys are still having the time of your lives. They have many social groups, work full time, visit the theatre and new restaurants and travel the world when they can. They are silly and funny and in love and they are running around after grandchildren too!

I look at how much I have grown and learnt since I was born (hopefully) and think well I have that amount of time again and then I’ll be my parents age. Of course, we don’t know what life ever has in store for us but personally I see thirty as another new beginning. A chance to rebirth perhaps. I want to learn to play the piano, I want to launch another business, write a book and I hope to have many many more drunken silly nights with my besties.

I’m not going to go on about all the life lessons I've learnt in my thirty years on this beautiful and scary planet as I’m sure I have many more to learn but I will say that it’s taken me thirty years to finally feel just a tad more at ease in myself. I’ve muddled through a serious break up, a serious break down and running my own business. I don’t feel invinsible but I do feel like I can cope a bit better with what gets thrown at me.

And that’s all we can ask for right, whatever age we are. Keep growing, keep learning, keep loving, keep going.

By Lottie Murphy Tingman