1. You realise that, in spite of reality’s expectations, you are so NOT an adult. A mere few days after I’d turned 30, I came home to find a spider boldly rattling around my house. My first port of call? My Mum, of course. I rang her in tears, begging her to make the hour long journey to mine to get rid of it. For some reason, she refused point blank. To save myself £150 on a hotel room for the night, I swallowed what very little pride I have left and knocked on for my neighbour. I stood snivelling haplessly in the doorway while she shook bins and moved armchairs trying to find it, before eventually capturing it with her bare hands and launching it into the garden.
2. People in their 20’s seem, like, REALLY young. I recently went on a date and recoiled in horror when he told me that he was 28. 28!!!!
“Oh my GOD,” I shuddered. “I’m old enough to be your mother!”
“Wait- aren’t you 30…?” He said, brow furrowing in confusion.
“Yes,” I replied gravely.
3. The sun will make you proper giddy. No, not because you can lol around in beer gardens all afternoon or indulge in a cheeky day sesh… but because you can wash your electric blanket, hang it out to dry, and use it again, ALL IN THE SAME DAY!!
4. Anddddd while we’re on the subject, let’s face it, there’s NO greater joy at 30+ than ACTUALLY BEING ABLE TO HANG YOUR WASHING OUTSIDE TO DRY!!! After MONTHS of your spare room smelling like a wet dog and your fave jumper taking approximately half a decade to dry, that first cheeky flash of spring is HEAVENLY.
5. Slowly but surely, your body will start shutting down. You won’t even notice it at first, but one day, you’ll spend an hour out in the garden doing some seemingly harmless weeding… And you’ll need four whole days’ worth of Epsom salt baths to recover. It’s funny, I run between 60 and 70k a week without a twinge, yet weeding – BIG no no. My apparently decrepit shoulders aren’t what they used to be, I’ll tell you that much. These old bones can’t take the heat anymore.
6. Cleaning products become surprisingly fun. Limited edition mandarin and swede washing up liquid? I’ll ‘ave some of that, thank you VERY much! 20% more concentrated clothes conditioner? Don’t even know what concentrated means, and I still don’t know which washing machine compartment to pour the condition into, but CHUCK IT IN THE BASKET! Mr Muscle drain unblocker? Ooooh, don’t threaten me with a good time!!!
7. Things that you used to find ‘sooo boring’ now actually secretly thrill you. Things like Tesco Clubcards, National Trust memberships, council tax reductions, Channel 4’s upcoming series of ‘Devon & Cornwall’ … and when Aldi release a new bag for life bearing a witty pun about boiled eggs.
8. The phrase ‘hell is other people’ becomes your life mantra and personal coat of arms. The crowds! The people! The noise! It all becomes unbearable in your 30s. I was looking back through my old 2011 diary the other day, and there was a prompt at the beginning which asked 18 year old me to list her favourite places: “Tenerife, Selfridges, cheeky Nandos, the refec at college, and Tiger Tiger.” … The sheer thought of spending a night at Tiger Tiger - or any nightclub for that matter - makes me want to slither away and hide in a dark crevice like an old, angry anaconda. Don’t get me wrong, I still love a boogie and a twerk as much as the next person… but I don’t love the crowds. 2 people, max, is pretty much mg comfort zone.
Now, my favourite place EVER is my house, where no one can bother me.
9. Your taste changes. When it comes to ranking your fave shops, Topshop, Zara and Hollister are promptly knocked off the top spot by B&Q, Homesense, and the holy grail of adulthood: Ikea.
10. Your ‘beauty routine’ takes on a new meaning. You swap fake tan for anti-ageing cream, wishing you’d listened and taken your Mum’s advice to start looking after your skin in your 20’s, because apparently eternal youth actually isn’t a thing after all. Who knew?
11. Remember in your teens and 20s, when you could quite happily stay up till the AM, somehow survive on around 3 hours sleep, and feel absolutely fine the next day? Yeah well, that all ends at 30. If I’m not in bed by 10pm, even on a weekend, I’m physically, emotionally and spiritually on my arse for the next 6 weeks.
12. You start to feel the cold. God, some of the outfits I used to parade around in when I was a teen…! I LEGIT used to go on nights wearing a plaster-sized pair of hotpants with a bikini top, and I was seemingly invincible to England’s biting temperatures. Maybe my 89 layers of fake tan gave me extra coverage, idk. Since turning 30, I’ve flourished into a lover of all things thermal My thermal socks were one of my fave Christmas presents last year, and I’m never smugger than when I remember to leave my clothes under the molten electric blanket while I shower.
13. Drama becomes massively unappealing. I couldn’t get enough of the ‘dramz’ back in the day. Now, if that group chat starts frantically buzzing, I sink into myself like a little slug. Please God no, not today. Just leave me be with my Midsommer Murders omnibus and my 7th glass of detoxing lemon water. I’ll tell you what I want, what I really, really want… To be left a zig-a-zig-aaaaALONE.
14. New ‘music’ will make you wince. When my Mum used to find me wailing along to Justin Bieber and JLS, she’d tut and sigh something along the lines of, “They don’t make music like they used to. This is no Manic Street Preachers!”
I’d roll my eyes and say, “Go-dddddd, it’s coz’ you’re like, SoOoOo old.”
… Nah, I totally get it now. I refuse point blank to listen to anything that came out post 2003. If it’s not Ja Rule, TLC or Laryn Hill, I don’t wanna’ hear it. ‘Back in my day,’ Kelis released a song about milkshakes which, IMO, teetered on the right side of cheeky. Meanwhile, in 2020, Cardi B hit us up with a song about her, ahem, ‘WAP.’ Stop the world, I wanna’ get off.
15. Texting becomes SUCH. A. CHORE!! I bloody HATE texting. Receiving a text fills me with sheer dread, because it inevitably means that at some point, I’m probably going to have to reply to it. But does it? Because, I won’t lie, I’ve been known to forget to text people back for approximately 6 months before. Long gone are the days when BBM was practically my religion. One of the best kept secrets of being 30-something is that your phone’s ‘do not disturb’ feature becomes your actual bestie.
Cara Jasmine Bradley ©