The 'T' Word


"Remember that moment in Friends when Rachel pleads, 'Dear God, can I stay in my twenties forever? I dread turning 30.' I've been feeling the same way since 2024 began.

The idea of turning 30 in about a month haunts me. Frankly, it never bothered me much earlier; I was too carefree about these things. But I have realized that when the 'T' word hits, it does. Because, boy oh boy, you might feel 25 in your head, but the world will surely remind you of your age at every opportunity they get.

In just a year, four of my closest friends got married or engaged, and now this has started feeling like the beginning of being the "30-something" aunt who hasn't gotten married, still lives with her parents, and might have joined a cult or something. Kidding.

While the last year in my twenties was full of events, good and bad, life is about to change as we know it. Parents are getting older, job risk-taking capacity has gone down, and the importance of “ghar ka khana” is understood because the street-side momos are not going down well the oesophagus anymore and vodka shots have very casually been replaced by lentil soup.

Amidst all this chaos, what got to me this year was the realization that I have changed so much as a person in the last decade. The person I was at 20, I wasn't at 25. The person I was at 25, I am not at (almost) 30. And I wish to be a completely different person at 35.

For the first 18 years, I was a kid, excelling at school (read: seeking validation through good marks). From 18-25, I was a DU girl (read: kurta and jeans-wearing girl, seeking validation by being the party girl in UG and the library girl in PG). Then I was a job seeker (government job seeker initially and then a start-up culture advocate). But now what?

Do I know my purpose yet? Nope.

Honestly, I thought I would have figured it all out by now. I imagined myself writing articles about how to stop overthinking your next ambition and prioritize traveling. Instead, I have mini panic attacks once a fortnight about where my life is heading. I wished I could write about how I hustled hard and made a lot of money in my twenties and now plan to take it slow in my thirties. But, obviously, that didn’t happen.

There's still a long way to go, but as Lilly Singh said in her book Be a Triangle, “It is foolish to think that we are entitled to a life that wouldn’t suck. Life doesn’t owe you anything.” 

Our ideas of how life should be by 30 are just fragments of our imagination and expectations (thanks to influencers making it to Cannes at 25). In reality, life is full of noise and chaos.

But you know what? Maybe turning 30 is the plot twist I never saw coming. It's like that unexpected chapter in a book that changes everything. Instead of being disappointed, adjusting my ideal life portrait to match the reality seems like a better option right now.

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