What does turning 30 feel like, look like, think like?
From a living, breathing, 2-week-young 30 year old.
Growing up obsessively devouring young adult novels whose protagonists were often at the prime age of 17, I thought that would be the best time of my life.
It’s been 13 years since I turned 17 and every year that I’ve inched more firmly into adulthood has been strange to witness. Sometimes it feels like an out-of-body experience, where I observe myself from afar and find it tough to believe that I’ve grown up, gotten married, work and have a house of my own. Perhaps this disbelief has been tinged with little bleakness and mortality, because I was plagued with depression for a while that I couldn’t envision myself living past a certain age.
30 is a milestone! I was chatting with a couple of good friends I’ve known since our childhood days on our trip to Taiwan recently, and we recounted some of the horrors of our growing up years and mused about whether we’d go back to that time. Being 16 or 17 was definitely not the best time of my life, so it was a resounding ‘h*ll no’ from me and all of us. I do not wish I was younger because that would mean having to struggle through immaturity, crippling insecurity, mistakes and living through the pain of those consequences that only hindsight and wise counsel could have helped.
30 looks like a solidifying confidence, one that accepts my own personhood more and more and my place in this world.
The lead-up to turning 30 was weeks filled with deadlines. I was busy with work and life, in a good way, with two exciting illustration/design projects, housework and packing for my trip to Taiwan. In years past, I’d be anxious about the turning of the clock. Birthdays were only significant to me to the extent that they’d confirm whether I am loved and valued by those around me. I’d be hypervigilant for signs of celebration or neglect. Not having the time this year to worry about the attention I was receiving gave me the freedom to humbly receive the love given by others. Turning 30 meant an equal measure of nonchalance and openness towards my birthday, a point of true growth when compared to the bitterness and tears of the past. The biggest gift was being able to be present to the people who made the effort.
I traversed challenging terrains and emerged on the other side of a couple of mental blocks between my 29th to 30th year mark. Below are notes from the shifts in my philosophy and life practices that have pretty much stuck around as my 29th year draws to a close.
01/ The prospect of motherhood
It might be a broad-stroke to say this, but I think it captures the sentiment I’ve noticed: we’ve become quite anti-children, and pro-dog-children.
While I’m being a little tongue-in-cheek about that pawrent statement (I love dogs to death), I don’t think I’m alone in observing the general attitude of children being seen as burdens in every sense of the word—financial, mental, physical and emotional.
I’ve wanted children and a good family life ever since I was a child. I acknowledge this desire is coloured by my negative childhood and family life, marred by my parents’ divorce. It’s important to me not to see that dynamic repeated.
After marriage, though, the question of when we’d embrace parenthood began to take on a different form I never thought about until I had to face my mental health issues squarely in the face. My struggle wasn’t just whether I’d be a good parent, or whether I’m ready to be a parent (good questions, but answers to those two questions are simple—no, I’d never be the perfect parent; no, I’d never be ready), but about whether I’ll ever be fit to be a parent, as much as I desire to nurture and love a child. The fear about whether I’d perpetuate brokenness (and ruin my child’s life) because I was still waiting for my mental health breakthrough was a daily, fear-filled reality I grappled with.
I wasn’t anticipating the change. One day, Audrey sent me this Youtube video about keeping a commonplace notebook simply because she thought I’d enjoy it. It was there that I entered the rabbit hole of the world of Charlotte Mason, Classical Education (+ homeschooling) and everything associated with a convivial Christian family life. While I was introduced to educational philosophy and pedagogy of a different kind than I grew up with, what captured my heart was this: a more delightful, deeply beautiful way of not just mothering, but also living in the home. One that reflects the Christ-light-likeness within and without. And there were many ordinary women who courageously pursued the way of what’s true, good, and beautiful in spite of the path’s challenges.
Examples like these gave me the hope my heart needed, in spite of my fears. As I fell in love with inspiring ideas, my life began to change (you become what you behold). Jon could see it and he would point it out in our dinner conversations; I could feel it in my very heart.
Resources I loved:
02/ The materials for a good family
In the same vein, the above discoveries pushed me to begin thinking deeply about my role as a wife and the position I held in my little family. As with most Christian couples, I went through almost a year of marriage prep with a mentor-couple. But was that sufficient to cover all the bases? Nope.
The idea that Jon and I, in our role as husband and wife, form the bedrock of what family is and what future family with children looks like clicked for me this year. Since day 1 of married life, I intellectually assented to having formed a new family unit through the vows and covenant I entered into. But how did that look like in the dailyness of life? After going through 3 years of married life, a good marriage, and by extension family life that’s rich in love, communication, forgiveness, laughter, and rooted in the same values don’t come accidentally or casually. They’re hard-fought. That work begins… gulp… with me.
It dawned on me that I not only have a responsibility as a wife or future mother, I have the power and privilege to change the atmosphere of the marriage/family/home through simple yet profound things like my daily habits. Vice versa with Jon (although I love and admire him so much because I think he came into the marriage already thinking about these things). So it’s been a year of thinking hard about my life—why do I wake early? Why do I exercise? Are these habits for my own gain, or would it bless my family? What habits of giving do we build into our monthly budget so our values of generosity are lived out? Should we pray together, why? How do we observe the Sabbath?
Resources I loved:
03/ Living more like a human
Before you raise an eyebrow, I would like to present to you, very briefly, the idea that we, in the modern age, may not be living as humanly possible, but are becoming less and less human by the lives we default to.
Precipitated by, once again, my venture into The Commonplace and Autumn’s experiment with a dumb phone, I was introduced to the idea that despite being human, much of our lives in the modern age train us to live like machines and think like machines. It’s not just the language that has entered our colloquialisms, but our habits as well. How are our daily habits forming our hearts, minds and lived realities?
I spent some time experimenting with my daily habits, but three big areas I’ve put effort in are: 1) cutting significant time off non-essential technology, 2) keeping the Sabbath, and 3) observing the Christian calendar to participate in Christ’s life and story.
It’s probably not news to you if I talk about how being on the phone or social media all the time is not good for anyone. Apart from the icky feeling of scrolling social media for too long, and a palpable shortness of breath (this happens to me and I’m not exaggerating) when I scroll or grab my phone just to check for notifications, I began to see that it would prevent me from living like how God would like a human to live.
Being glued to screens for 95-99% of the day, having shorter attention spans and an inability to focus, finding it hard to be bored when queuing up for something, “checking out” and relying on entertainment for rest, finding it difficult to give the person I’m with my full attention because I check my phone for notifications, having conversations around content seen online instead of getting to know the other person deeply, getting easily impatient if things are slow and challenging, not being outside and enjoying God’s creation because there’s entertainment indoors, giving in to the impulse to document every minute of my life, impatience towards prayer and going deep into God’s word… the list goes on!
If constant entertainment, convenience, easy dopamine hits, spectatorship, and virtual audiovisual stimulation fill my every moment because I find I cannot be separated from technology, these will be, by default, the things that form me. I become someone who looks less and less like Christ—who lived a holistic, relational, embodied, difficult, self-sacrificial, loving, holy, and slow life.
It began simply enough, when Jon and I decided to unsubscribe from Netflix. Then I utilised the downtime function on my phone, which doesn’t allow you to access most of your apps except calls, SMS and utilities. I’d set it from 7pm to 8am Monday to Saturday, and from Saturday evening to the whole of Sunday, most of my phone apps can’t be accessed so that I keep my Sabbath as tech-free as possible.
In my daily routine, I’d cut off my computer time by the time dinner begins, and I don’t use most, if not all, my devices during the Sabbath, which begins with a date with Jon on Saturday evening and extends to Sunday. Of course, there are the occasional exceptions to this rule. My purpose in doing this is not to cut myself off from the world and live like a hermit, but to use technology purposefully, not in a way where it’s mastering my life. The benefits? It has freed up my headspace, I am not as anxious or easily frustrated, I don’t feel as shackled down by needing technology to function, I’m reading more books filled with the best of ideas, I have more capacity to think, I am more present with the people I meet, I notice all the beauty and grace around me, I’m more present…
Secondly, keeping the Sabbath is one of the few powerful ways to live into our humanness because in our ceasing, resting, embracing and feasting on the day, we acknowledge God is God and we are not. This has been a long work in progress for me, and sometimes I still fall back into striving for the perfect Sabbath. But what has helped me is to think about how Sabbath would look like, feel like, sound like, taste like, smell like? What are some practices that would help our family enter into Sabbath rest? What would help me enter into that rest? How is my heart weak and what is needed to keep it rested and centered on God and his good gifts?
This will morph as I go through life. But for now: it’s looked like playing some worship music while we get ready for church on Sunday. Stopping for a Teh C (milk tea) and Kopi C (coffee) right before service. Planning ahead and getting the crucial (not all) housework done on Saturday so that my mind will not fret throughout Sunday. Putting away all technology and filling my time with journaling, reflecting, reading the Bible. I endeavour not to check my business Instagram or emails. It has, at times, included reading poetry out loud, reading a good novel, doodling, sewing, and lately, tinkering on the piano. I don’t make my bed on the Sabbath, and at times, I try to be in creation by taking a walk with Jon at the mangroves or the beach. Sabbath ends with a lit candle and a feast. Sometimes, it involves spending time with people. Other times, it’s quiet and slow.
My effort to observe the Christian calendar shares similar roots to the above in that it was an effort to be more mindful of the expansive richness of being a Christian, imitating Christ’s life, and therefore being more human (to be more like Christ is to be more human). It was my first time doing this, and it was a delight to think a bit deeper about how to fast and celebrate during Lent and Easter, how to thank God and be awake to the Spirit’s presence during Pentecost, how to live out a Spirit-filled life in Ordinary time. Soon, it’ll be Advent and Christmastide.
Resources I loved:
I hope that these thoughts and practices I’ve lived through in my 29th to 30th year pointed you to a helpful direction that God may be leading you to.
Further up and further in!
