Happy & Healthy

DIRTY THIRTY DIARY #1

Thirty is not the new twenty

Here she goes (that’s me), my final sprint is now on. Just over two (TWO) weeks and I’ll say goodbye to my twenties. Two weeks ago, I was chilling on vacation, because thirty was sooo far away, now I’m rushing through all the drinks, dinners, and get-togethers, because I’m still young, fit, and carefree. Soon… I’ll have to open mail on the day it arrives, pay bills well before the due date, and be in bed by eleven (keeping in mind important appointments the morning after – no, not that kind of appointments because I’ve definitely become wiser from one day to the next).

And then everyone says: ‘Nah, thirty is the new twenty.’ Do you know that it gives me a bit of an itch? Because it really isn’t. At twenty, I was living alone and shared a place with a dangerously party-addicted friend at the Dappermarkt in Amsterdam. I napped off my hangover on Friday mornings during business economics and I was without a diploma. Sometimes I still wake up in a fright, because I dream that I still haven’t graduated. So now I have, but back then I hadn’t. And I was as insecure as can be, even though I got a boost of confidence when I moved into my own place. I thought I was chubby, but I was fit and beautiful. And I hummed for whole evenings about that unbelievable loser from four weeks ago, who wasn’t worth humming about at all. Managing a household at twenty was also a complete disaster. I took three times as long to do the dishes, because I let them sit for just as many days. A big clean-up didn’t even exist in my vocabulary. I mean, dear everyone, in my early twenties I was an insecure, ungraduated, slim (that at least) version of myself. Let’s not talk about that household, because those skills hadn’t really taken off yet. But then you’re almost thirty and in balance (or pretending to be), would that mess of misery start all over again? No way José.

“Thirty is NOT the new twenty and that’s fine.”

Thirty is NOT the new twenty and that’s fine. Thirty is just thirty, but nowadays we do everything in optimal form and that means thirty has to comply too. Amsterdammers even feel younger than they are. They play hide and seek at parties, attack each other with water guns, and coloring books are flying off the shelves. So you’re thirty, but are you really? I initially aimed for forever twenty-nine (read here for a moment), but my decision is final. On October thirty-first, I turn thirty, so not twenty, and I won’t stay twenty-nine either. Dirty thirty it is and that’s okay. It’s just as well that I don’t live in Amsterdam, because then I would be it and not feel it that way. That would confuse you, right? Thirty then.

Now that my decision to turn thirty is set, the next issue arises, because you have to celebrate it a bit nicely. But how do you throw a party that does justice to thirty? I’m going to enlist Joss and Lil for styling, because how do you transform a brown pub into something that looks somewhat okay in photos? And do I hand out water guns or do we play hide and seek? Tough. Keep you posted.