I recently turned 33 and have finally reached the age where I no longer feel like a child – yes, 33! For the past 10 years or so, I have felt more like an adult than actually an adult. I felt like I had played a role.
But now that my third child has been born and life has slowed down significantly due to COVID-19, I feel like a real adult now and I’m really happy. When I was in my 20s, I wanted to stay in my 20s forever, and once I lived through that stage of my life, I was ready to move on. If you could stay young forever, life would be like Groundhog Day. And with each passing year, I feel ready to start a new chapter in my life.
I went to university at 18, went to clubs almost every night, lived on £50 a week, loved waking up with a hangover every morning, and life was one big party. But I definitely don’t want to do that again!
I was 21 years old, traveling the world, meeting new people every day, staying in budget hostels in 16-person dorms, sleeping in a different place every night, and loving how life was one big adventure. But then again, I don’t want to do that anymore!
I was 26 years old, living in London, working hard, working and networking, burning a candle at both ends, and loving how my career was my entire life. But as you can probably guess, I won’t do that again either!
And now I love being a mother of young children. Life is chaotic and noisy, but also slow and quiet. There is so much joy in everyday adventures and small moments that quickly become great memories. But I don’t want to stay at this stage of life forever. Having young children is a stage in life filled with a lot of love and emotion, but it’s hard work and all-consuming. I’m not rushing through this stage, but I’m also happy to get to the other side of it and have some time back for myself.
What I’m basically saying is that it’s very important to enjoy each stage of life, but it’s also important to be happy and feel ready for the next stage when that stage is over about it.
Without further ado (yes, I’ll stop confusing you) here are 33 thoughts I’ve recently had about turning 33, or things I’ve realized since entering my 30s!
- If your 20s are about finding yourself, your 30s are about enjoying the person you found. Honestly, being in your 30s is amazing.
- Life is so much easier when you can be happy with who you are. You can stop thinking silly things like, “What if no one likes my clothes?” or “Did you think it was stupid for someone to say that?” If you like your clothes, you don’t care if other people don’t like it. And if you know it’s something important to say, you won’t question it. Unless you’ve had 4 G&T’s and really stupid things are spewing out of your mouth. It still happens!
- I’m really, really anxious about the next 33 years of my life. What if his first 33 years were great, but what if his next 33 years weren’t so good? What if his first 33 were really lucky? I can’t imagine what my future holds, I’m anxious.
- I’m so happy to finally be able to embrace my personal style. I’ve often said that I want to find my style, but the truth is I’ve always had a style. I didn’t need to find it. I just accepted that my style would always be jeans!
- I was surprised that I no longer noticed aging. I don’t worry about getting older or looking older, and I don’t try to hide the signs of aging. Growing older is a privilege, and what once looked “old” now looks very young. I look her 33 years old and that’s totally fine. I don’t want to look like I’m 20!
- The media makes us believe that our young years are the best years of our lives, but I don’t think so. Don’t get me wrong, my 20s were great, but life just keeps getting better and better as I keep adding more and more great memories.
- My school days were definitely not the best years of my life. People tell school kids to enjoy school because they are the best students of their lives, but this terrified me. The best days of my life have never been spent shivering on a cold hockey pitch, learning about algebra, trying desperately to be served at the local pub, or waiting in line at a restaurant. There wasn’t. Trust me, life gets better!
- I still feel really young. When will I stop feeling young?
- It’s probably when you talk to someone who is 20 years old and realize they are so young. When I was 20, I thought I was very mature, but I wasn’t. I was a child.
- “When we’re 20, we care about what other people think of us. When we’re 40, we don’t care what other people think of us. When we’re 60, we care about what other people think of us. It turns out I wasn’t thinking at all.” I’m cheating because it’s an Ann Landers quote, but it’s so true. Maybe I’m getting old, but I’ve already realized that most people don’t care and aren’t going to overanalyze the stupid things you say when you’re drunk. No one cares about the stupid things you say when you’re drunk.
- You will never be as young as you are now. Even if he doesn’t like his photo now, he’ll probably look back at it in 10 years and think it was great. So take more pictures, you look amazing.
- Real community is the best thing. Online communities are great, but nothing beats real-life connections and feeling like you’re part of a group. I was very sad to leave London, but I’m so glad I moved to a rural village with such a strong community.
- Less is more everytime.
- Listening to my emotions and instincts is probably the most important skill I’ve learned since turning 30. Whenever I feel like life is getting a little overwhelming, I get the urge to declutter, declutter, and declutter. I’ve always thought this, but I’ve never accepted that these two things go together. Realizing this way can really help you understand yourself better.
- Finding your tribe is magic.
- It feels like we still have a lot of natural physical strength from when we were young, but at what age do we lose this natural physical strength? When should I start getting serious about fitness in order to enjoy life without getting bloated?
- Spending money on experiences rather than things is a better use of your hard-earned money. In 10 years, you’ll have forgotten all about that £200 handbag, but you’ll remember that gorgeous weekend.
- It’s all about taking photos and keeping them safe. Even casual photos from everyday life will become irreplaceable small treasures in 10 years. Take more photos and videos and keep them safe and you’ll thank yourself in the future!
- Recognizing procrastination is an important life skill. When I was younger, I spent hours making to-do lists, doing research, and saving money to buy things, all because I was putting off something I was afraid to start. It was just a way to do it. I found this to be a game changer. You can’t stop procrastinating, but at least you can recognize when you’re afraid to start something and ask yourself what you’re afraid of.
- When people are mean, it’s usually because of fear. Once you understand what they’re afraid of, you’ll find that most people are really nice.
- Having goals is really important to me. I like to accomplish things, and without goals, I don’t feel like I’ve accomplished anything, even if I actually accomplished a load. Lockdown is a great example of this, and I wish I could have set myself small lockdown goals to feel like I accomplished something in those long, endless days.
- Hangovers now feel like a waste of a day. I used to enjoy most of my luxurious hangover days on the couch, but now I don’t want to waste 50% of my weekend on a hangover!
- You cannot make others happy unless you are happy yourself. I know it’s a cliché, but it’s true and I don’t think it’s selfish to put yourself first. I often put myself before my kids (shock horror!) Kids take a lot of your energy so you have to run at 100%, otherwise you It just consumes everything you have.
- It’s hard to find what makes you truly happy without being influenced by others or the media. The media makes us think that more things will make us happy. This may be true for some people, but it’s not true for me and it took me a long time to figure this out!
- As I got older, I began to question everything I had been taught. In particular, I began to question things that were so obvious that I never questioned them when I was a child. Mainly because of consumerism and this constant wheel, we get caught up in working to buy things we don’t need, so we buy more things to maintain this lifestyle. I have to try harder. But since you no longer have time to enjoy a luxurious lifestyle and you don’t have the time or energy to take care of all the nice things you’ve bought yourself, you have to pay someone else to take care of them.
- Time doesn’t fly by when you’re doing a lot of things. A year feels longer when it’s full of happy memories. After six months of doing nothing, the lockdown ended really quickly.
- I always have a special bond with the people I went to school with. Even if you have nothing in common, growing up together creates a lifelong bond.
- If you have the power to change something you don’t like, you should change it. And you have more power than you think. I remember being about 18 and moaning about my flabby bingo wings. Now I’m in my 30s. You’ll never hear me moan about my flabby bingo wings. Because I’m busy doing tricep dips to make sure Bingo’s wings are flabby. This is obviously a very trivial example, but it drives me crazy that people spend so much time and energy complaining about something they have the power to change. If they put all their energy into solving the problem, they would have nothing to complain about. But this brings up a whole new point that most people actually enjoy doing something that makes them moan!
- Don’t compare yourself to people who are at a different stage of life than you are. People often say that comparison is the thief of joy, but I 100% disagree. Comparison can be a great source of motivation to go out and do whatever you set out to do. If Tracy Next Door is doing it, why can’t you? But things get dangerous when you compare yourself to people who are at a completely different stage in life than you are. Tracy, your neighbor, just ran a marathon, but Tracy’s kids are all grown, she works part time, has been a long-distance runner throughout her 20s, and has way more free time to train than you do. Don’t beat yourself up about it.
- Finding joy in routine and organization can be life-changing. I wish her YouTube video for “Get Organized Together” had been around when I was 21 with her. Because at the time, all you had to do was look at it.
- It is very important to accept what takes up your headspace. Sometimes it’s the accumulation of small tasks that takes up the most head space and can leave you feeling overwhelmed. It can be hard to admit that you feel overwhelmed by something as simple as deciding what to have for dinner each night, but once you accept that and find ways to make decisions easier, life becomes much easier. Masu. Just because a task seems small and simple doesn’t mean it doesn’t take up your headspace.
- Make more time to play. Play with your kids, dog, partner, or friends. Life gets so serious that we often forget to make time for play.
- Life can quickly become boring if you don’t keep trying and learning new things. We live in a world where learning new skills and trying something new has never been easier. So take advantage of it and keep learning!