It feels so good to finally be here.

Anticipating thirty was about as enjoyable as going to the dentist for a cleaning. I hate the dentist and I hated working up to turning thirty. It made me queasy. It made me panic. It made me question what on Earth I have been doing my whole life and why I have wasted so much time. I felt extremely pressured to get to work.

Maybe it’s the fact that I’m living back at home at my mom’s. Maybe it’s that I recently started a new career and that feels a lot like starting over. Maybe it’s that I’m single and my biological clock is screaming at me that I better get my shit together.

Whatever the reason, or because of all the reasons, thinking about turning thirty had me fluctuating between a feeling of NEW YEAR NEW ME! and total emotional breakdowns. In the final weeks of twenty-nine I only functioned in extremes. Like a runaway train, there was no way for me to slow down thirty as it hurtled towards me.

I promise that I did my best to deal with it. I looked at the positive side of things. I fervently and furiously wrote out gratitude lists and lists of affirmations. I made plans on the day of my birthday to fly up to Northern California for a dear friend’s wedding, hoping that I would think as little as possible about myself and my fears. I prayed. I talked it out in therapy. I judged myself for getting so worked up about turning one year older. I tried to be kind to myself when I realized I was being my own worst critic. More often than not I tried my hardest to ignore the fact that it was coming.

I white knuckled the whole process. The whole glorious and terrible shebang. It was something to get through and something to be dealt with and I really really just wanted it to be over. The in-between was agony. I needed resolution.

The good news for me is that it was eventually over. And once it was over, once it was finally here, thirty started to feel pretty fabulous. Thank God.

Turning thirty was also a big deal for my blog. As you have probably noticed, there’s been a few updates around here. I hope you like them. The new name is simple. No fluff. It’s not catchy and it’s not inspirational.

At first I tried to come up with a name that was cute and witty and maybe even a little bit poignant, but then I felt the importance of just being me. I think that this change will allow me to come back and blog more. I think that this change represents where I am currently at. I hope that this change will help me to share more of myself through my writing, something that I haven’t been great at doing for over a year now. This blog is my home base. When I’m not writing I’m usually thinking about how I can write about what I am experiencing. Writing is an outlet and also an integral part of me. When I write, I feel like I am actually fulfilling a purpose. I hope that you get something out of it, too.

This blog has seen me through some very big things and I know that it will carry me through all of the big things yet to come. I think that its new name is fitting. Like me, it has plenty of room for growth.

Whoever you are and however often you read my posts, I hope that you are as relieved to say goodbye to Twenty-Everything as I am. I think that this is good for us. I think it is a necessary step. It think that this is a new chapter and a wide open door.

A new decade. A fresh start. One more layer peeled off. A little less noise and a little more truth. 

This is thirty.