Tomorrow, I Turn 30.

Tomorrow, I turn 30. It’s a new decade, full of possibility and hope and uncertainty. For the last five years, I thought my anxiety around this milestone would grow and grow. I had a hard time turning 25, after all. But really, the closer I’ve gotten to 30, the more accepting I’ve become of this birthday. It’s that “letting go,” maybe? Or the end of my Return to Saturn? Or a temporary reprieve out of which I’ll find myself in a month, terrified and lonely? There are, of course, far more important things to worry about in this world currently. Perspective helps.

For now, I feel okay about entering my 30s. I thought I’d be married with kids in a house I owned by now. But instead, I’ve been wandering around Buenos Aires, evaluating my career, and quarantining on my parents’ tugboat. And now, I’m sitting in my cozy bed, in my childhood home, full of gratitude, and about to celebrate this milestone with only my immediate family. Life is strange and unpredictable.

One of my most favorite quotes is by Cheryl Strayed. It goes like this: “I’ll never know, and neither will you, of the life you don’t choose. We’ll only know that whatever that sister life was, it was important and beautiful and not ours. It was the ghost ship that didn’t carry us. There’s nothing to do but salute it from the shore.”

That life I had envisioned for my current self, back when I was in my early 20s? The one in which I had three kids by the time I was 30 and was in love with my husband and decorating my home and working happily as a speech-language pathologist?

That’s my “sister life.” And it’s a beautiful life. An important one. And it’s not mine.

There are things that I want in my 30s. Most notably: children. In fact, on New Year’s Eve, I found myself buying a pair of adorable handmade baby bloomers at a little shop on San Juan Island. I lied to my mom when I bought them (sorry, Mom!), claiming they were for my friend, a new mother. But really, they were for me. They were a tiny symbol of hope for the new decade we were about to enter. A statement to the universe. A will for manifestation.

I felt embarrassed to admit the truth, and there’s a part of me that still does. What if, at 40, I still have no children? What will people think then, knowing that I wanted them so badly? Will they pity me?

I think I’ll be okay, even if I don’t feel okay.

Come at me, dear 30s. I’m ready for you.