the next chapter

So.... what are you doing for your 30th?

--> "Nothing. Sleeping. Pretending it never happens."

--> "Life stops at 30 right haha?"

--> "30 is the new 20, haha"

... and then insert around 100 more of these sorts of responses from people.

Turning 30 years old. It's the one we’ve all heard about, anticipated, feared or completely ignored - until it's our turn to do it.

It’s the age that movies romanticise, society analyses, and friend groups toast to with varying degrees of enthusiasm (or, in some cases, existential dread).

The iconic scene from Joey "Why, God, why?!" in Friends, is an example.

But what happens if for you, your 30th, it's just, I dunno, a … good old Tuesday?

The following reflection comes from the world I live in. I know that this journey looks extremely different for people who are growing up in other parts of the world.

So.

It feels like there's a certain heaviness to this period - it's not always loud or dramatic - but present, like a low hum somewhere in the background of the room, but one you can't turn off.

There is a general sense that you should be building, settling, achieving. That life is no longer about wandering, but arriving.

And yet, the pressure doesn’t hit everyone the same way. It creeps into us on different timelines, in different languages. Some feel it in their career milestones, others deeply in family plans, or just the quiet comparison to peers who seem to have “gotten there” faster, painting the ideal life.

And these pressures have the capacity to impact our relationships, whether that be with friends or romantic. That alignment gap can cause tension, not because anyone’s necessarily wrong, but rather because the clocks you’re hearing don’t tick the same way.

And it makes you wonder: how does this pressure actually affect your relationship? Is is justified? Is it valid? Many times, it doesn't feel fair, sometimes timelines weirdly don't add up, and this could be for our upbringing, culturally or simply, biological reasons.

For example, although this is a generalisation, as I know couples with all sorts of dynamics, but for the most part, when it comes to wanting to have a child. The age range we are presented with to make this decision:

and then:

Generalisation

So if you're in a relationship with someone your age, how does this work? Who speeds up? Who slows down?

If there were no biological pressures for women to have children before 35, I wonder what the average age of motherhood would actually be.

Would couples indeed wait longer? Would we feel more free to take our time, explore, build, grow, before settling into parenthood? Or maybe not? What do you think?

And then with friends, I see many are doubling down into their relationships, focusing on their partners and the life they want to build together. Building the right infrastructure for their next chapter. To be 'happy'. To be 'settled'.

friends are updating their priorities

...

In 2018, I was in a small village - Sonoshi, India, having this quiet moment with the woman who was married to the village mayor. We were alone (plus the translator), just talking, and I decided to ask her something I was deeply curious about, how she felt about her arranged marriage.

She paused, and then said “It was easier for me because I didn’t have to decide.”

This has stuck with me ever since.

To clarify, I do not agree with the idea of forced marriages. At all. But what she said revealed something I hadn’t considered: for her, not having to make a life-defining decision brought a sense of peace.

There was no pressure to choose her life partner, no fear of making the wrong call. And I think that says something about the weight decision-making can carry, especially when the stakes feel high.

Western society says, if you don’t have a family by a certain age, it often gets treated like something just didn’t work out. Or maybe not, but yet still, if you're one of the only ones of your group 'without' it, do you find a new group?

From when I was 18 and travelling around the world, I feel I am practically the same person. But suddenly, people start looking at you differently. There’s a heaviness to that, a subtle shift in how you’re seen, and therefore, how you start seeing yourself.

And it's a strange shift.

Person A is easy, they can advance on the more 'grown up' topics. And then you have Person B who is struggling to advance, with a barrier stopping them.

So for person B, what do you think is better for them? Hold onto and extend the last chapter as much as they can? Or high jump over the barrier to move onto the next one.

It is the invisible pressure of it all.

So, when you do turn 30, it's not about the party you do (or don’t) throw. It doesn't feel that it's about whether you’ve "made it" or ticked off the boxes you once thought you would, but rather feels like navigating a kind of invisible current, one made up of pressures, timelines, comparisons, hopes, and doubt, and then finding a way to keep swimming without losing yourself.

About knowing that some chapters stretch longer, and others start before you're ready, and that’s okay too.

But ultimately, to love, be kind, be empathetic, to be in a flow state, and be bliss - the journey is beautiful!