Listen to this story being read by Chelsea McLaughlin, here.
A John Mayer song sent me into a full spiral the other day.
Yeah, I know. How embarrassing. But he and his guitar skills are my toxic guilty pleasure.
Anyway. It was a song called 'Stop This Train'. It's very cheesy. Life is a metaphorical train, and it's going too f**king fast. He wants to pull the brake, to stop it from hurtling towards the terrifying unknown future.
But John Mayer is a musician, not a train driver. And I am an... entertainment writer. There's nothing I'm less qualified for than driving a train.
Watch: In 2019, at age 98, Eddie Jaku told No Filter his advice for a good life. Post continues below video.
We're kind of just... stuck, on a ride that's become uncomfortably speedy.
When the shell-shock wore off, I made another mistake. I did some maths. That song was released on John's 2006 album, Continuum. At the time, he was 28.
WHAT THE F**K, JOHN.
I turn 30 on October 5, 2022 and all logic has been thrown unceremoniously out the train window.
For 29 years, I've LOVED my birthday. It's always been the best day of the year, in fact.
Logically, I know that I should feel the same about this next one too. I know it is just another birthday, another milestone, another loop around the sun. As my grandma always reminds me, we are lucky to have them.
I KNOW THIS. I truly believe this. And I am well aware that anyone reading this who has already turned 30 is rolling their eyes.
But they've all been here too: 29, just, and terrified.
What is it about 30 that gets us in a spin?
I've mostly floated through life without thinking too hard about my age until the past few months.
For as long as I can remember, we - and I mean society, broadly - has used 30 as a signifier of 'the end' of youth and all that comes with it. So long, spontaneity. Goodbye, carefree nature. Catch ya later, line-free face.
Say hello to responsibility and bills and sore backs.
For women, there's also the implication that our desirability - our most important attribute, duh - vanishes into thin air the moment the clock strikes midnight.
I mean, we live in a world in which a 35-year-old Emmy Rossum can be cast as the mother of a 26-year-old Tom Holland. So that's... cool.
As a result, I've spent the last few weeks mourning things that aren't even dead: nights out with my friends, the ability to pack it all up and get on a plane, drinking too much and dancing embarrassingly to 'Get Low' at a club, house party or, worst of all, in front of someone's entire family at a wedding - even though I know for a fact that the Lil Jon classic will be on the playlist at every single reception I go to for the rest of my life.
I have noticed my 'youth' disappearing and have found that confronting.
Teenagers are officially scary! I don't understand 90 per cent of what happens on TikTok. The stress of the pandemic led to a couple of rogue, shiny silver hairs sprouting at the front of my hairline in 2020. The lines on my forehead are setting in. My Spotify Discover Weekly playlist served me a song about being scared to turn TWENTY F**KING THREE. And I really don't get the appeal of Jack Harlow.
According to all the cultural conditioning we absorb over our lives, there's a lot to lose at 30. But you're also supposed to have gained... well, everything.
Someone, somewhere, at some point, decided 30 was also the age in which we measured all success. We hurtle towards 30 clutching a list of things we simply need to do before we wake up on our birthday. I don't know who that person was, but I think they're an arsehole.
Travel? Career? House? Partner? Kids?
Life seems to be about box ticking, at this point. And not for our own personal happiness, either, but to 'keep up' with everyone else. So many of my friends of the same age or a little older have told me they've felt a sense of panic and needing to rush around this period of their life. They've made huge, life-altering decisions on a whim. They've changed jobs or thrown out their entire wardrobes or said yes to dates they didn't want to go on. Sometimes it worked out well. Sometimes it didn't.
I read those '30 things to do before 30' lists and grimace at how few boxes I have ticked or lessons I have to share at the same stage of life.
I can only think of two pearls of wisdom: 1. never apologise for or hide whatever it is you are passionate about (and don't judge other people's interests if they don't align with yours), and 2. buy a silk pillowcase. You're welcome.
I actually don't want to tick most of the 'boxes' we hold up as life's most important milestones, that feel especially important around 30.
My job is great - I mean, I write and talk about celebrity culture, TV and music all day. It's the dream, but I have no desire to 'move up the ladder' in the traditional sense. I don't have a house. My partner and I don't see the point in marriage. And it's been a 'hell no' to children since I was a child myself.
If you stray from the pre-determined path, you face a decade of eyebrow raises, confusion and comments like 'tick tock, biological clock'. I'm not even in my 30s yet and I'm already sick of people telling me I'll 'change my mind' about my own life choices.
Thirty is the year we've been told we are supposed to 'have our sh*t together', whatever that means. I still eat breakfast for dinner at least once a week, and my culinary skills end at frying halloumi. I don't have my sh*t together!
And yet, I also know that no one has their sh*t together. Everyone, except maybe Beyoncé, is winging it.
All of this navel gazing is because of outside noise - of societal expectations, of what we see in TV and movies or read in all the magazines when we were kids. Most of us know it's bullsh*t. But that's not the message the world is yelling at us, is it? And if you hear something enough, you start to believe it.
I've spent the last few weeks panicked about what turning 30 means, what the future might look life, and whether I've already had my last sleepover with my best friends and just didn't realise it.
But now that it is all written down, I can see that all of this nostalgia for the past and worry about the future meant I lost sight of the most important thing: the now.
And I am, genuinely, happy with where my life is at this point and there's nothing I'd change. Well, I'd have like, at least three more pet cats. But other than that, I'm pretty content.
My back hasn't started hurting for no reason yet, so maybe I'll reassess this down the line. But for now, I am running towards 30 in a really good place.
So, back to the cheesy metaphor: I can't stop the train, but I can recognise that all the noise that tells me I should want to is crap. Instead, I can just try to enjoy the ride, and then wake up on my birthday and laugh at how dramatic I have been about this.
I probably won't listen to John Mayer again for a few weeks though. Sorry, John.
Chelsea McLaughlin is Mamamia's Senior Entertainment Writer and co-host of The Spill. For more pop culture takes, recommendations and sarcasm, you can follow her on Instagram.
Feature Image: Supplied/Mamamia.
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