Why why WHY do hairdressers ALWAYS interpret ‘I don’t like short layers in the back of my hair so don’t cut them’ as ‘please cut eight inches difference between the top layer and the bottom’?

Are they addicted to layers?  Obsessed with making my hair resemble an odd bushy animal as soon as it curls?  And NO, in case you were wondering Ms. Haidresser, you did NOT ’still leave a bunch of long layers’ for me.  GAH.

Oh and yes, I am trying to keep from tearing up a little bit.  This is why I only cut my hair twice a year.  I’ll now be spending the next year growing out this mistake.  *sigh*

So yeah, I’m not dead.  I haven’t gone anywhere either, just had a bit of a break from the blog.  In the past six weeks I turned 30, went to Belfast, climbed a 6c at the climbing wall (YAY!) talked back to my boss and witnessed a friendship that has been dying on the vine for the past year and a half move onto the last death throes before its expected demise (was that a seriously mixed metaphor or what?).  So it’s not that nothing has been going on, just that I couldn’t find an interesting or entertaining way to talk about everything.  So…I just didn’t.  Oops?

Anyway, so yes, I am now 30.  And so far 30 has been pretty much like 29.  Not exactly a life changing event, but then I wasn’t expecting it to be either.  But I did head over to Belfast to celebrate, which was very fun.  I’ve never been to Northern Ireland before and I figured, what other time in my life will I be able to drag a bunch of friends wherever I ask them to go?

So while in Belfast we had to head up to the Giant’s Causeway because, well…look at it!  It’s weird and odd and totally naturally occurring!  I swear you’d think these stones are man-made but THEY ARE NOT.  There were some signs explaining how they were formed, but honestly, I got bored and didn’t really care.  Cool rocks, who cares how they were formed?  Apparently, from my friends who actually did read the signs, there are some of these on the coast of Scotland too, but I’ve never actually seen them.

Oh and I did I mention that I drove up there?  Meaning that I drove?  The one lone American in a group of five British people and the only one to remember to bring her driver’s license in order to actually rent a car?  The one who is technically not allowed to drive in Britain due to a lack of a British Driver’s License?  Yeah, well, I did.  And I didn’t even hit one single thing thank you very much!  That’s not bad for not having been behind the wheel of a car for six months.  Though I did almost get in the passenger side the first time I tried to get in the car, but whatever.  And ok, yes, I maybe kinda broke the law, but we’ll keep that between us, ok?

While in Belfast we went on one of the Black Cab tours, which I would highly recommend for anybody heading over there.  It was sad and absolutely fascinating at the same time, once I managed to understand what the taxi driver was saying.  Is this what people feel like when they come to Glasgow?  You look at someone and you KNOW they are speaking English but it is like NO English you have ever heard.  Our driver, John, was pretty awesome and knew a lot about the history of the city.  John was also able to give us a lot of information about he current state of the Protestant/Catholic divide in the city and what it all means for regular folks just trying to live their lives.  He brought us first to Shankill Road, the Protestant area of town, which also was the location of one of the creepiest murals in the whole place.

Yes that IS a great big gun pointing right at you.  And no matter where you stand, it still points at you.  Totally creepy.  John said it’s to reinforce the idea that the Unionists/Loyalists are always watching you.  I asked if the owners of these buildings gave permission for the murals to be painted or how that worked, and apparently it doesn’t really matter what you personally think, when the local Unionist come knocking on your door saying they want to paint a mural, you just nod your head and don’t argue.

One one of these murals (not this one, though this one has some LOVELY things to say about Catholics) misspelled ‘vigilante.’  Of course, being the total grammar-nazi that I am, I found this highly amusing.  I turned to my friends and said in my usual ‘outdoor voice,’ ‘Ha!  They misspelled vigilante!’  All five of my friends turned to me in horror and in total unison immediately went ‘SHHHHH!!!!’

So if we all die in a shooting someday, possibly by vigilantes, it was my fault for mocking the scary military group with the big guns.

I was expecting the murals and the catholic/protestant disagreements, but what I really wasn’t expecting were the peace walls.  This is a picture of the largest one, separating the Protestant and Catholic areas of Belfast.  That wall is HUGE.  And it stretched for a fair bit, with big locked gates across the roads.  John said that all the roads between the Protestant and Catholic sides of the city are locked at nights and at weekends, to discourage violence.  The only one that is open is wired up directly to the police station so that it can be shut immediately if there is any hint of trouble.  It was so strange to actually see these huge walls separating communities, an actual physical boundary between people in order to keep the peace.  It really opened up my eyes.  A lot.

See we get quite a bit of Sectarianism here in Glasgow too.  But it’s nowhere near like it is in Belfast.  But what John said about it really made me think, because it has nothing whatsoever to do with religion.  It’s about where you were born or where you went to school.  Who your parents are.  Where you live.  It’s just a way for people to say you’re either ‘us’ or ‘them.’  It’s not about Catholic or Protestant.  As John said, ‘In Belfast you can be an Atheist, but you’ll still be either a Catholic Atheist or a Protestant Atheist.’

Like most people in the U.S., I pretty much thought all the violence was over.  But just a few months ago two police officers were killed in Belfast by the Real IRA, though Sinn Fein and the IRA (separate group) both condemned the killings.  And the day my friends and I flew back to Glasgow a Catholic man in Derry was beaten to death by a Protestant gang following a football game.  So the violence never really stops.  Even in Glasgow you’re not allowed to wear football colors into pubs for fear or sparking off violence.  One of my friends spent the whole tour questioning John about how things are and if there is any way to stop it.  She kept saying, ‘it’s all just so horrible.’  And yes, it is, but I just kept thinking, this is just part of being human.  There is ALWAYS an ‘us’ and a ‘them.’

Apparently this used to have Bush holding a handful of cash and sucking all the oil out of Iraq.  I guess now he’s sucking something out of Palestine?  I’m not too sure on that one.

The other most exciting thing to happen on my birthday weekend was that we witnessed a VERY drunk man come stumbling out of the pub, trip and smash his ENTIRE FACE into the sidewalk.  He was so drunk he didn’t even manage to get his hands up to catch his fall, he just did a total faceplant.  I can still hear the bones crunching as they hit the concrete.  EW.

Otherwise we had a great time and I was very responsible and didn’t even get very drunk at all.  Not easy in Ireland, but I managed it.  Of course the next weekend I partied in Glasgow and stupidly invited my friend who bought me tequila shots…but that’s a story for another time.

Just your daily giggle…

And then there’s Irish yoga…

I’ve been in a bit of a funk these past few weeks.  I’ve had no idea what is causing it, which has been driving me even crazier than I already am.  I feel out of sorts.  Melancholy.  Not unhappy, but not really happy either.  I feel like I’m sort of drifting through life without a purpose.  I want more, I NEED more or else I’m just going to disintegrate into a puddle of boredom and nothingness.  Either that or my ass is going to become permanently attached to my couch, which is even less appealing.

I’ve been trying to figure out what’s gone wrong, why I feel so disheartened with everything.  I thought it was some sort of existential problem, that my life is lacking meaning of some kind.  Then I thought maybe it was because it was a holiday recently (we had a four day weekend for Easter) and everybody I know was either away with their partners or their families.  I didn’t have anything to do or anybody to go see, which was pretty depressing.  But then I ended up going over to a friend’s house for easter dinner, so that ended up being FUN, which doesn’t explain the melancholy.  It was just WEIRD.  Why was I feeling like this?

I finally realised, after more than two weeks of pondering, that actually, it probably has nothing to do with any of that.  The only thing that has changed in my life recently is that my regular climbing and running partners have been out of town.  So I haven’t been climbing for two weeks, which is enough to drive me up the wall.  Then my running partner was sick, then I got sick too, which has kept me from running.  Well, that plus I hate running by myself due to the inherent mind-numbing boredom (look, a tree!  Look, another tree!  Ooh!  There’s a DOG!  Ok, I’m really tired now).

I’ve never really been one to believe in the whole ‘runner’s high,’ though I’ve read a lot about it.  I work out on a very regular basis and I have to say, though I do enjoy it, I don’t get euphoric when I’m working out.  I mean I’m sweaty, red-faced, frizzy-hair sticking out from my head in every direction, both lungs and thighs burning, by the time I finish I’m ready to fucking STOP already.  I’m usually euphoric that I can go home and sit on the couch for awhile.  I’ve never really gotten a high while working out, though that’s probably because I’ve never run for longer than an hour at a time.  I hear the high comes at around the 1-1.5 hour mark (and it better, because I tell you, after running for that long, you’d NEED a high to keep going).  Anyway, basically though I enjoy running and I feel happy when I’m working out on a regular basis, I never really thought it was a crucial part of my psychological makeup.

Apparently, it is.  Because the only thing that’s changed in the past two weeks is my lack of exercise and I’ve been totally in the dumps.  So there you go.  Regular exercise makes me feel better.  Yes, I am a total genius.  In other news, puppies are cute and snow is cold.  You heard it here first.

Get ready for some serious cuteness.

Say hello to Ellie, my parents’ new dog.  She’s so freaking adorable I can hardly stand it.

I realise that I’ve been slightly missing in action from the blog recently (teeny tiny Sydney boats notwithstanding). It’s not because nothing has been happening around here because it has, though in ways that I’m finding completely difficult to write about. I know I do sort of write in a stream-of-consciousness way (and yes, I write exactly how I talk), but I also like to have some sort of a point to my posts. Like, ‘this is what I learned today!’ or something. But lately, I feel like while stuff has been happening, I’m having a really hard time figuring out what it all means, or if there’s a lesson to be learned at all. I’m feeling strangely disconnected and unsettled, like there’s something I should be doing but I’ve forgotten what it is. My life has turned into a continual cosmic search for car keys that have been put in the freezer.

So I’m not really a blabbing blogger, but I’ll give it a try just to let you all know what I’ve been up to this past month or so, besides looking for metaphorical car keys.

One nice thing about living in Scotland is we have quite a few public holidays. Just this past weekend I had Friday and Monday off for Easter, which was very enjoyable. Of course I’ve somehow caught a horrible cold, which is just bad enough to make me feel like crap, but not bad enough to get me off work. I find myself praying that I’ll get worse just so I can stay home. I’m convinced I have a fever, but when I took my temperature this morning my temp was actually about four degrees lower than it should be, so…I have hypothermia? I don’t really know.

My friend got married on Friday, which was a really really odd experience. I’m happy for him, in a way, since I know that this what he wants, or at least what he thinks he wants. I still think it’s a mistake, even though I know I’m judging his relationship on my own interpretation of what love and marriage should be. I KNOW that people can be happy with all sorts of different relationships and even though she’s not the ‘love of his life’ doesn’t mean they can’t be happy. I still felt like a horrible cynical bitch at their wedding, but whatever, it’s their life. Does it really matter what I think? No. I could say a lot more, but I’ve already devoted enough space to him on this blog and I think that’s enough. Moving on…

I have now been single for almost nine months. The situation is getting DIRE. Not for myself personally, because I’ve gone much longer than that in my life without a date, but for my own judgement. I’ve started checking out every single man in my vicinity, thinking, well…he’s kinda cute… I went to a race last month and ended up going on a date with a 22 year old just because he had a bunch of tattoos and was adorably enthusiastic about everything. I can really only blame myself when he turned out to be a total flake (there were quite a few warning signs). He phoned me to invite me out for a drink on Wednesday with some of his friends, to which I said I might be able to go and he agreed to get back to me with the plan. He finally texted me on Friday with an ‘oops, sorry! How are you?’ text after giving me no information whatsoever for three days. I’ve forgotten to text him back for a week. I think he’s gotten the message. And I now remember why I didn’t enjoy dating 22 year olds even when I WAS a 22 year old.

And yet, still, STILL, a part of me wants to text him back. Not to be nice, but to tell him he’s messed up. Because he NEEDS TO KNOW WHAT HE’S DONE WRONG. What would this accomplish? Um…nothing, except to reopen communication with someone I don’t actually want to talk to anymore. I don’t want to go out with him again, even if he apologizes profusely, and yet, I feel the need to tell him exactly how he messed up. Which is idiotic, on my part. As a good friend said to me, ‘the only reason you’re even thinking about him at all is because you don’t have any other options.’ Well, yes. And, um, OUCH. Though, I haven’t actually texted him, so, score one point to me! Albeit, in a very stupid game that nobody actually wants to play. Yay?

My parents are getting their new puppy on Saturday. I’m really excited for them because my mom has been a little bit lost since our dog died just before Christmas. I’m mostly sad because I won’t get to see the puppy in person until I go home for a visit in July. I know the puppy will still be a puppy, but she’ll be less cuddly-ball-of-fur and more raging-furball-of-puppy-terror. At least she’ll hopefully be house trained by then. My memory of our first dog involved a LOT of running after a puppy in the dark, in the rain, who just wanted to play when I just wanted her to poop already. However, my mom is so excited and she’s taken a whole week off work to make sure the puppy settles in okay. She really is the best puppy mommy.

The big 30th birthday extravaganza is also arriving soon (next month, I’m panicking already). I’ve decided that I’ll be dragging all my friends over to Belfast to force them to celebrate with me. Oh just kidding, they WANT to celebrate with me! I have no idea what we’ll do there, though I drew the line at staying at the Europa hotel, famous as the most bombed hotel in Europe! Maybe we can go check out the bullet holes. It was super fun in Dublin. Otherwise we’ll be hanging out, drinking cocktails and trying to understand everyone with their funny accents. Gotta love Ireland.

So that’s my life in a nutshell! Any lessons or morals anyone would like to share? I’m stumped, to be honest. Or maybe the lesson is that there ARE no lessons in life sometimes.

When I was little, I loved miniatures.  I have a very distinct memory of going to see the Fairy Castle in Chicago when I was about five and sobbing and crying because I wanted it for my very own but I hadn’t asked Santa for it in time for Christmas.  Of course I completely believed that if I’d had the foresight to ask Santa for the Fairy Castle, he would have given it to me.  Never mind that it was probably bigger than my bedroom and was valued at over a million dollars.  Doesn’t matter, Santa is magic!

I still love miniatures, though I don’t collect them anymore.  So you’ll imagine my delight when I saw this:

This is the work of Ken Loutit, who has been filming Sydney for the past year using a technique called ’tilt-shift filming’ which mimics the look of filming miniatures. It’s like a miniature that comes to life!  Check out the waves on the beach, they are so cool.  I especially love the little helicopter.  (and don’t worry, this was apparently the work of filming a training exercise, not a real drowning.  Nobody was harmed in the making of this film!)

Something I also love? Boats. Even better? Teeny tiny boats!

Hello all, yes I know I’ve been neglecting my blog.  It’s very bad.  Can I say that work has been really crazy?  Or maybe that I’ve just been SO BUSY?  Or, um…my mom is getting a new dog and needs help picking a name?  Ok no, those are all lies, I’ve just been lazy.  But my mom IS getting a new dog.  I’ve had stuff I wanted to write about but for some reason whenever I’d get home the couch would start calling to me and I’d fall into it and never get out.  It’s a real hazard.

So yeah, anyway, I was reading this article online about ‘true dating confessions’ which were ultimately not that exciting (‘I’ve never waxed ‘down there’!’  ‘My boyfriend is shorter than me!’).  But one kind of rang true to me and made me think.  That topic would be, ‘My boyfriend has no friends.’ As a person who once had a boyfriend who had no friends and who then turned into a crazy-eyed possessive raving lunatic, my first thought was, ‘RUN AWAY, RUN AWAY!’

I’ve always felt that this was a big red-flag in a dating situation, because it’s a relatively innocuous if somewhat odd thing that can hide a variety of more deep-seated issues.  Ever since dating THE CRAZY I have made it a personal policy not to date anybody who has no friends.  I have a few reasons for this, pretty much all of which are based on that one dating experience.  Just for the record, those reasons are as follows:

1.    I’m a very social person.  I like going out and spending time with friends and I enjoy meeting new people.  I talk.  A lot.  I love having a good debate and I spend a lot of time with my friends, also talking.  A lot.  My assumption about people with no friends is that they aren’t super comfortable in large social situations.  Otherwise, if they liked these situations, wouldn’t they seek them out?  Perhaps actually MAKE FRIENDS with people to then hang out with?  I’d hope that my partner would want to spend time with me and my friends and would feel comfortable doing so.  There’s nothing worse than being in a social situation and knowing that your significant other is having a miserable time and is basically being a big ‘ole wet blanket.

2.    I think it’s very important that a couple do things separately from time to time.  It’s crucial that I have my own interests and my partner has his and we spend time doing these things apart from each other.  I encourage my boyfriends to go out and hang out with their friends, do their ‘guy things’ while I also fully expect to be able to go out and do the same with my friends.  But what if the boyfriend has no friends?  It’s just a constant string of ‘where are you going?  What are you doing?  Who are you talking to?  Can’t I come?’  NO YOU CANNOT COME.  Do your own thing.

3.    The flipside of this (and this was the situation with my ex) is that the partner-with-no-friends will start believing that the only thing you would never need is each other.  Why do you need friends?  YOU HAVE ME.  With my ex he truly believed that I had arrived in his life to fill his every social void and that he would never need anyone else but me.  When I respectfully disagreed with this position, he started getting jealous of my friends and generally acted like a total self-righteous prick at all times.  (And yes, I know this is seriously controlling behaviour and the relationship didn’t last much past this point).  The other aspect of this is when the partner-with-no-friends thinks you have arrived with a brand new social circle just for him.  Neither way is fun.

4.    My final reason, and again, this is totally based on my one experience (and remember, HE WAS CRAZY), but I think there’s something just a bit…off about someone who can’t make friends.  Or I guess I should say that I think it could be a sign of bigger issues if someone chooses to live a completely solitary life.  I can’t say all the reasons this could be, but I do think it could be a sign of bigger problems to come.  It’s a pretty big-ass red flag, is all I’m saying.

I haven’t actually come across that many people who have no friends, but during my recent foray into internet dating I emailed a few times with a guy who said he ‘didn’t know too many people in Glasgow.’  This turned out to be…um…like one person.  He has no friends here.  At first I was like, well, um, that could be explained, I guess…but then it transpired that he has been living in Glasgow for four years and doesn’t really know anybody.  That, combined with the fact that he was excessively keen to get to know me, started making me a bit hesitant (and I mean EXCESSIVELY keen.  Like in one email he said we should ‘try a fun game’ and then emailed me a numbered list of questions to answer, including a question about my ‘dress sense.’  Um, huh?)  He seemed nice enough, but the ‘no friends’ thing kind of got to me and it never went anywhere.

Of course, I went and read the comments on that article and then I felt like a totally judgemental bitch.

Not everyone is like you. Some people like a few close friends. Some people like a million friends that are usually superficial friendships. And some people would rather be alone or with their bf/gf. There is no real NORMAL for this subject. Having more friends doesn’t make you better than someone with less friends.

I urge you to act in the best interest of those people who are different than you and stop placing labels and judging people, or try to change them to assimilate to your needs.

Ok, point noted.  I’m awful.  But even with all of that, I still think I’d seriously question dating somebody who didn’t have any friends.  I know that’s mainly based on my previous experience, but still.  Am I totally alone on this one?  Do I have a point, or am I just an awful judgemental person who should never be allowed to date?

Like every other woman alive, I would imagine, I have been on my share of diets in my life.  I generally go on one a few times a year for short periods (a month or so) when I notice I’ve put on a few pounds.  These moments tend to coincide with trips back home, since apparently even just being in proximity to mother-produced baked goods causes me to gain ten pounds.  Because I was home for Christmas and the mother-produced baked good were well and truly in abundance, I’ve been on a diet and exercise kick since New Years.  I’ve been easing off a bit over the last week or two, mainly because I lost the weight I gained but also because being on a diet sucks gigantic amounts of ass.

Seriously, why do we do this to ourselves?  I was getting up at 6:30am for six weeks to work out every day before work AND also working out most days after work too.  I realise I am a bit insane.  I also realise that that level of motivation and dedication can only last for so long because I’m totally NOT a masochist and I also tend towards lazy, given the choice.  I like being active and while I feel virtuous and ‘good’ when I’m working out a lot and watching what I eat, I also never in a million years believe I can keep it up forever.  It’s a short term thing to reach a goal and once I reach the goal (or get close enough to it to feel like I’ve accomplished something, at least), I usually slack off again.  Which inevitably leads to a slippery slope to weight gain and then I go on the diet again.

I was getting dressed this weekend and I noticed that my stomach is getting a bit soft again and I immediately thought, ‘right, better get back to the 6:30am workouts.’  But then I thought, hold on a second.  Why?!  Why do I have to make sure my stomach is flat?  Who is even SEEING my stomach these days other than me?  NOBODY, that is who.  I’m single and nothing is happening in my bed these days other than taking long naps, so who cares what I look like?  It was a bit of a shock to me to realise I had totally swallowed the message of ‘you’ll never find a man if you’re FAT!’ thing that I HATE and that is patently untrue anyway.  I suddenly had this huge flash of realisation, this glimpse of the rest of my life on diets and constantly worrying about gaining ten pounds and feeling like I’ll never be lovable until I get my damn stomach to be flat and it was HORRIBLE.

Wow, that was a lot of shouty words there.  I apologize for that.

The more I thought about my diet cycle though, the more I realised that I was doing it in some sort of effort to be ‘hot’ or ‘sexy’ or ‘attractive’ in an effort to better attract men.  And there’s always that little voice in my head, every time I diet and lose a little bit of weight, that keeps saying ‘you know, just keep doing this for another few months and you’ll get REALLY skinny and you’ll be SO hot and you’ll finally meet the perfect man!’  Of course I never do it.  I’m lazy, as we’ve already discussed.  But the DESIRE to do it is there.  And that desire is based on the belief that I’m not already sexy enough as I am, that there’s this whole other additional level of hotness that I can only achieve if I lose weight.  And that’s pretty damn messed up, if I do say so myself.  WHY is that messed up?  Well I’ll tell you!

I actually thought about this logically.  Ok, say I DO lose a ton of weight and get all skinny and find a man who is attracted to said skinny body.  I know my body, I know how it ticks and I know what it would take to achieve and maintain a body that is significantly slimmer than I am now.  It would take A LOT of work.  It would take multiple daily workouts, for the majority if not the entirety of the week.  It would take a very VERY strict diet.  It would take me focusing more on the foods I’m not allowed to eat than on enjoying I am.  It would take dedication and time and commitment.  It would mean that even if I DID find a man, I’d have to spend more time on my workouts and diet than I would on spending time with him.  Sounds hot, right?  Everybody wants a girlfriend like that.  Not to mention that thinking about food all day would just about drive me crazy.

But see, the thing is, any man who got together with super-skinny me would just be getting an ILLUSION of me.  Because honestly, I know me and I know I wouldn’t be able to sustain that for the rest of my life.  And what if I get pregnant?  What about if I gain weight and can’t lose it?  What if my metabolism slows down and my bad knees finally give out (like they have in every other member of my dad’s side of the family, from where I get my knees) and I start getting rounder and rounder and rounder?  Ultimately, I want to be with someone who I know won’t care if any of that stuff happens.  As silly as this sounds (and it may be untrue also, I totally admit that), I think a man who finds me sexy as I am NOW, thighs and all, will be more forgiving of a few pregnancy pounds or some bad-knee weight gain than someone who is attracted to crazy-but-skinny me.  And I know that if I just stay as I am now, without killing myself to be someone I naturally am not, I’ll be a much happier and better partner.  THAT is more attractive than anything.

So I’m going to go have a cookie now and enjoy my softer stomach and rounder thighs.  Because they’re ME and that’s ok.  In fact, that’s pretty damn fantastic.  Besides, I can balance a lot more cookies on my thighs for future consumption the way they are now.  THAT is a result I can believe in.

I was reading Jezebel the other day and came across a post about women and goal setting, based on an article from The Sunday Times.  It discussed how common it is for women to set goals for themselves based on their ages, things like, ‘I’ll be married by the time I’m 25’ or ‘I’ll have children by 30’ or ‘I’ll be a partner in the law firm by 35.’  This article said basically that this was very common and this sort of goal setting was more about women comparing themselves to their peers and feeling pressure to meet the same milestones at the same time.  It’s another ‘look how women sabotage themselves’ article, but it made me think about my own life and what sort of time-frame goals I’ve made for myself.

I’m coming up to thirty on my next birthday (in May, which is getting closer and closer by the day) which is a big ‘milestone’ birthday.  Thirty is sort of the end of the time of being young, especially for women.  When I was twenty, thirty seemed to far away.  This is sort of random, but ten years ago I’d just started to collect all the state quarters, which were just starting to be released.  For all you non-American readers, for the past ten years the US Mint has been releasing quarters with a specially designed obverse side for each state.  They were released five every year, starting with the first states and then going along chronologically until all 50 were released.  My mom bought me one of those big maps with little inserts for every coin so that I could collect them all.  I started collecting them in 1999 and the last one was released this year.  I vividly remember standing there with that map and thinking, wow, I’ll be thirty when this whole thing is complete.  I will have done SO MUCH by the time I’m thirty.

So yes, of course, of course, I had things I’d planned to do by the time I hit thirty.  When you’re twenty, you have this big list of things that you’ll have done by thirty because, DUH, thirty is REALLY FREAKING OLD.  I figured I’d have the time to circumnavigate the globe practically, I had that much time.  I wanted to live abroad, get a good job, date a bunch of guys on my ‘guys to date list.’  And sadly no, this wasn’t a list of names, it was a list of types of guys.  You know, ‘guy in a band’ and ‘guy with a motorcycle’ and ‘guy with lots of tattoos.’  It’s so ridiculous to think about this now, as if you could collect guys like you would pick a bouquet of flowers.  ‘Uh oh, can’t date another guy with tattoos, I already have two of those…’  Also, I dated a guy with a motorcycle and it DID NOT make him cool.  He just looked like a dork on a motorcycle.  Seriously guys, if you work at Intel?  DO NOT get a motorcycle.  You’re not fooling anyone.

I think that sort of goal-setting is very common when you’re young.  When I was 20 I had definite plans for what would happen when I was 25 and 30.  Of course that was shot all to hell when I turned 25 and had accomplished NOTHING on that arbitrary list.  I was living at home, was working at an accountant’s office (a field which I had no interest in), had never had a long-term relationship, was still attempting to get onto the masters course I wanted (rejected the first time), had no savings and no idea what I was doing with my life.  25 turned into a prime opportunity to panic.  I thought that I’d have my life all figured out by 25 and in reality, I was as much of a mess at 25 as I was when I was 20.  This was NOT how it was supposed to go.

So I had my freakout and then I got all my shit back together and moved forward.  I decided that it was ok if I don’t know what I’m going to do for the rest of my life, as long as I have a plan for the next year or two.  To be honest, I still don’t really know what I’m doing with my life.  But I can say with absolute conviction that I am a much, MUCH happier person now than I was when I was 20 or 25.  I’m happier with who I am and I’m ok with the things I haven’t accomplished yet.  I know that if they’re really important to me, I’ll make them happen.  If they don’t happen, then they weren’t supposed to and I can still be a contented person without them happening.  One of the things I had really wanted to do for my 30th birthday was to go to Nepal and to travel up to Everest base camp with the expedition group.  That hasn’t exactly happened, but it’s still a goal I have and I know I’ll get there someday.  I think for me, the one pleasant surprise about turning 30 is that I’ve let go of that need to have hit all my goals on that arbitrary list that I made when I was 20.  I know now that it’s really not all that important.

So what was that list?  There are a few I remember.  At 20, I definitely thought I’d be married by the time I was 30.  Doing the ‘ole ‘reverse baby chronology’ thing, I also thought at 20 that I’d be thinking about having babies.  Not necessarily having them, but I thought that I’d start having kids around 30.  And since I wanted to have babies around 30ish and I wanted to be married for a few years before then and I wanted to be engaged for a year before THAT and I wanted to have been with the guy for a year before THAT, that all means that I would have met said hypothetical baby-daddy around the age of 25-26.  Which at 20 sounds totally reasonable.  Obviously, that did not happen.  I met a LOT of guys that I would never in a million years have children with, so I guess that’s still moving in the right direction.  I’m eliminating possibilities, right?  Of course I’m also unsure now that I even want to have children, but that’s a whole different blog post.

At 20 I thought I’d definitely have a career.  I thought I’d have figured out exactly what I wanted to do and I’d be well on my way to doing it.  That…hasn’t exactly happened either.  I finished my masters degree and I am now a social worker, but I can’t honestly say that this is definitely my career.  I like it for now, but I don’t think I’ll necessarily be a social worker forever.  I’ve only been doing this job for two years, but I’m still already thinking about what else I can do next, where else this job can go.  I guess insecurity is exactly where I am in my job because I honestly don’t know what sort of career trajectory I want to have just yet.  Which at one point is terribly scary (and is one reason I don’t like thinking about this too much) but is also sort of freeing.  Yes, I don’t honestly know what I want for my career and yes, I DID spend a lot of time and money getting a degree that I may not always use, but the world is also wide open to me.  I still could go and do just about anything.  Well, not ANYTHING.  That whole Forensic Anthropologist thing is probably not going to pan out.  But I could still do quite a lot of stuff.

Now, for the one thing I HAVE done!  I’m currently living in Scotland, which was my absolute heart’s desire when in my early twenties.  I yearned for it, I longed for it, I thought never in a million years could my life be as exciting living in the U.S. as it could be in Scotland.  The only way I can really describe the feeling is to say it was like being homesick for a country that wasn’t actually my home.  The funny thing is that in my early twenties, I never considered that I’d ever want to move back to the U.S.  I figured I’d move to Scotland, meet my gorgeous Scottish husband and never come home.  Now that I’m ten years wiser (and have dated a few Scottish guys) I see things differently.  I know that Scottish guys aren’t really for me and that being close to my family is much more important than I anticipated it being.  I’ve had adventures and done some amazing things.  But after five years of that, I want some stability.

Now that 30 is looming, I’m trying really hard not to give in and start making goal lists for 35.  I’m not saying to myself, ‘ok, you’re not married by 30, that’s ok, you’ll DEFINITELY be married by 35!’  It is really really hard not to do this, not to set these goals and not to judge yourself by what other people have done.  The article I read said this was a ‘female thing’ but I don’t know if that’s necessarily true.  I think all people set themselves time-sensitive goals.  Maybe women are more likely to judge their own accomplishments by how their friends have done accomplishing the same thing, but the article seems based on anecdotal information.  All I know is that I can thankfully say that as I’ve gotten older, that obsession with meeting deadlines has diminished.  These days I can say to myself, yes, ok, I might be married by 35.  But I might not.  And that’s ok too.

Don’t get me wrong, comparisons still happen.  I can’t help but feel a little bit left behind as all my friends get married and I’m nowhere near to that happening.  Even though I know it’s not a big deal and that everybody has their own timeframe, a part of me wonders what I’m doing wrong.  However I think that feeling is mainly about losing a friendship than about wanting a husband.  It’s hard when people’s lives change and they grow apart, but I don’t think anyone else is better than I am because she’s done things differently in her life.  Now that I’m seeing 30 get closer and closer, I’m just happy that I’ve had the opportunities to do what I’ve been able to do, even if it is a little bit different than what I expected.