I’m totally at peace with it

I’m totally not.

In four months, I’ll be 30. I’ve used so much headspace planning dinners, parties and Spanish villas that I’ve been distracted from the real reason I’ll be ‘celebrating’ in late June. I’m about to enter my fourth decade.

I spent the weekend with a friend from Australia – someone nearly four years my junior, who had tactfully told me on my 28th birthday that I had great skin for someone my age. This weekend he turned 26 and lamented about how quickly old age had arrived. When I heard myself reeling off that whole ‘you’re so not old’ lecture I’ve had so many times before from those approaching 40, I realised 'crap, I’m finally there'. At last the realities of my own impending birthday were sharply in focus.

I am getting old…er. But that doesn’t bother me. So much. I’m not showing too many signs of aging - not visible ones anyway. I’m still confused for mid-20s and apparently for my age I do have great skin. Although I am finding I run into walls a lot more recently.

No, it’s not an age thing that’s got my mind stewing. It’s that old achievement chestnut. I mean, I have done a lot in a (relatively) short time, but I’m nearly 30 and I don’t have the clarity I expected to have at this point. Now that I’m over here in London and I’m slowly starting to figure out what I want to achieve, I’m kicking myself that I didn’t work it all out 10 years earlier.

At younger ages I knew exactly what I wanted in life. At 8, I wanted to be a priest (read into that what you will!). At 12, I fully expected to become the youngest actor to win an Academy Award (how I cursed Anna Pacquin when she stole my thunder*). And at 18, I was studying theatre at university, on my way to the big time.

By 20 I had lost all sense of direction, and ten years later I’m yet to truly get it back. As I entered adulthood and began working all day only to hemorrhage my wage on rent and credit cards, I become somewhat trapped in a corporate routine that I never quite saw myself in. I lost that clear picture of what I wanted, or what I could be.

I still think to myself I’ll be an actor when I grow up. Or I’ll give writing a go in the next few years. But it’s getting to a point where I should really wake up to the fact that I am grown up now and I should stop thinking of myself as that 18 year old, expecting that everything will one day be conveniently delivered in a sealed envelope.

The thing that I think really gets me as I race towards 30, is that I haven’t tried. Not really. I haven’t really taken the risks to be that actor, or write that book. Or even stopped to have a good think if either of those are what I actually want in life. To be fair, taking myself out of my routine and planting myself on the other side of the world has done wonders for renewing my sense of direction. And while I’m still not 100% sure what I want, it’s becoming increasingly clear what I don’t – and that in itself is a long overdue start.

It just sucks that I’m only working this out as I say ‘farewell twenties – but are you sure you can’t hang around for one more drink?’ At least the puzzle is starting to reveal itself. The challenge will be to make my 30’s count. I don’t think my skin can hold on till 40.

And in the meantime, I plan to celebrate hard – lest I remember again I’m just a fraction younger than 30.


* Further research has revealed that an eight-year-old Tatum O'Neal was, in fact, the youngest Academy Award winner, being awarded in 1973 for her performance in Paper Moon. In my defense, as a 12 year old, I had no idea the Seventies even existed.