My Thirties.

They say good things come in three's. Or is it bad things?

Either way, after tonight, I'll have three solid decades under my belt - and when I climb out of bed tomorrow I'll start my fourth.  As hard as it is for me to believe it, today marks the very last day of my 30's. I swear, I just turned 30 so I don't really understand how I'm already here, perched atop the next hill o' life that swings me into this new decade tomorrow morning.  Time, you are a mysterious, wild, and crazy beast.  And you're in charge, I get it. As much as I wish you'd slow down you just stubbornly continue to barrel forward in this race don't you?

Bidding adieu to my 30's feels like the most bittersweet decade I've said goodbye to yet because oh, I loved them so very much.  I remember when I turned thirty thinking I couldn't believe I was here, imagining my teenage self saying, "huh. people live to 30? and they aren't old?" Now here I am walking into my 40's - my. forties. a decade that always seemed so old until suddenly it isn't, not at all.  It's just where I am.

And that is eventually how I have come to think about turning 40, to accept this upcoming shift into my fourth decade. I'm not too proud to admit that over the summer I really struggled with this upcoming big birthday - forty hung over me like this ticking time bomb, lurking in the corner of my life, menacingly. Forty! Forty! Forty! How on earth am I old enough to be 40?! That's like, a real grown up isn't it?  Don't people have it all figured out by forty?

Ha.

Right.

As any of us with any years on us know, the older you get the less you have figured out.

But yes, I'm a little sad to say farewell to this most recent decade.  My 30's felt full of a lot of dreams come to fruition and adventures fulfilled and for that I am immensely grateful.  The third decade felt like the first time in my life I had maybe figured a few things out - or at least was getting closer to the really important stuff.  I realized the type of people who are invaluable to have in my life, just as I understood that some people I've known aren't - and the latter truly didn't have much at all to do with me personally.  While my 30's certainly weren't always easy they felt like a decade where I began to come into my own more - I made enough money to suddenly not be panicked every single time a bill arrived in the mail or rent was due (to this day it STILL blows my mind that I can decide to take myself out to dinner or treat myself to the occasional latte and not be sweating what check might bounce before payday).  I felt more certain about what I really wanted - in big sweeping life ideas, as well as in smaller more mundane questions.  I felt more sure of myself, I gained more responsibility, I was trusted with more, I stopped apologizing for things I did not need to apologize for.

And life got harder too, you know?  When I went to my 20th high school reunion two years ago one of my closest friends and I went to the restroom together. "Everyone is being SO nice," she exclaimed. "Even the cliquey girls!"

I nodded in agreement.  "I swear, Meg" I said, as we made our way back to the bar, "it's because at our ten year everyone was still trying to prove something.  By now everyone has had life knock them down a bit in some way or another.  We've all figured out life can be hard - it's humbling."

While my 30's gave me so many truly wonderful gifts that I wouldn't trade, there were things I thought I'd fulfill in this decade that as of yet I haven't - namely, finding a partner, having babies, building my own family. And while this decade didn't unfold with those gifts, they gave me plenty of others, some I had either given up on almost entirely (a job that I actually enjoyed, a move to New York, remembering what being in love could feel like) or that I never even saw coming and then was lucky enough to receive (my MBA, the coolest discipline to manage in my job, travels to distant lands with dear friends.)

And so. I look forward with hope as I walk into these 40's of mine.  I recall seeing the author Ann Patchett a few years ago when she had just turned 50. "People will tell you that you stop giving a shit when you turn forty," she said from her podium, "and that's true. But let me tell you, that you really don't give a shit once you're fifty."

I like that.  I value knowing what I care about, what truly matters to me these days. And truthfully I really like not giving a shit about stupid things anymore. It's so refreshing to be able to say what you feel and do what feels right and continue, as much as humanely possible, to embrace one of my favorite mantras: "fuck the rules."

A few weeks ago I caught up with an old friend of mine from high school (well, we weren't really friends in high school but we went to the same high school. And now, as adults were friends. Another story for another time.) Anyway, he turned forty last December and played an invaluable role in talking me off the ledge as I panicked about this next approaching decade.  On the phone for an hour, we shared stories about getting older - the good, the bad, and the ugly - and both agreed that we are extraordinary lucky.  We've got our health, which is huge, and we're both surrounded by truly fantastic humans in our lives. When it all comes down to it, that's what matters.

That, and as I told my friend, I enjoy the fact that I actually know things now.

"Like what?" he asked.

"Just like, about life." I replied. "Like the other day, my assistant was having this personal crisis about her car and some drama or something and I was like, oh just do this and this and this. I didn't even really understand what she was so worried about, though I know if the same thing had happened to me at 22, I'd have also panicked. But I just knew what she should do - problem solved."

He laughed. "Yeah, I guess we didn't always know that kind of stuff, did we?"

But now, suddenly, it seems we're old enough that we do.  Guess there's a reason that expression "old enough to know better" exists.

Last week I  was in a cab in St. Louis, on my way to the airport.  I don't recall what prompted my cabbie's comment, I have no recollection of what he and I had been discussing; but at some point driving along the highway he sighed and said, "it's a small world isn't it? You arrive, you're here for a little while, get to play around a bit, and then you leave."

Yes. Yes, indeed.

I like it here an awful lot though, that's for sure.  And forty? We're going to have some fun.