Birthday Milestone

I have always absolutely hated my birthday. Every single year the 14th of June slowly edges closer and with it comes an overwhelming sense of dread.

‘What do YOU want to do?’ asks every single person in my inner circle as I sweat profusely and suddenly feel as though I’ve never wanted to do anything remotely interesting in my life ever, before answering with ‘Haha I don’t mind, whatever everyone else wants to!’’ – without fail, every year.

As a professional people pleaser, it’s all too much responsibility. Organising someone else’s birthday? Pff, what a breeze. Having to admit that I want to do something and hope that others enjoy it? I certainly think not.

And then there’s the crushing feeling that rots in the pit of my stomach – have I made enough of the past year? Hell, have I made enough of my entire life up until this point.

And this year is even worse. Why? Because I’m turning 30.

Yup, the big 3-0, the big old milestone that says ‘sorry, but your decade to be an absolute chaos machine is over and you should appear as a semblance of a functioning adult’.

Accepting that my twenties are over has been hideous and there’s no shortage of people in my life who’ve hit 30, 40, 50 upwards and had minor (and major) meltdowns of suddenly entering the next chapter of their life.

But why? Why are these milestone birthdays so damn difficult?

At 20, I entered my new decade by sweating it out in my favourite nightclub and having an afters that the police shut down. I was full of hope and excitement and ready for it all to happen, my teens had been a cesspit of high school, bullying and trauma – the only way was up as far as I was concerned.

But I had also naively thought that by 30 I’d have a massive rock on my finger, a brood of kids and own a house (the cost of living crisis didn’t exist in my fantasy unfortunately).

It turns out I’m not alone in the fear of not having hit milestones. According to a 2022 UK survey by charity Relate, a whopping 77% of millennials and 83% of Gen Z-ers feel the pressure to reach certain life ‘milestones’.

After asking Twitter users how they felt about turning 30, one thing was very clear – many of us freaked the fuck out.

“I panicked, cancelled my birthday party plans and just went to the coast for the weekend with my partner. As soon as I turned 30 everything was fine and glorious, but the initial ‘oh god I should be married, have children, own a house, aka have my shit together’ was VERY real,” one commented.

“It felt very weird, up until I was about to be 29, I never even thought about it that much or........

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