A couple of days will pass and I will be at the doors of a whole new decade. As weird as it sounds I will be a 30 years old woman.

But, do I really feel like one? Why the fuss about turning 30? Is there a chip inside us that turns on and suddenly you will want to have kids, have a dog, a house and a garden?. We will see about that.

Is there something wrong with you if you are not mentally ready for that kind of extreme change in your life?

I have been to several weddings in the past five years and all these couples already have children and a perfectly cute and arranged house in the suburbs. No time to waste after marriage! Most of them have great, stable jobs and they seem to have their lives pretty figured out.

I do not feel like I am 18 and there are many things that I used to do at that age that I would not do now anymore. I care more for my life, future and well being. I am thinking of a time to quit smoking, I would not let a friend drive while totally drunk and for sure I cannot party for three days in a row without some proper sleep. But, do I feel old/older? No.

I love and I am in love intensely every day. I just quit my full time job and I am travelling, temporarily. That is also a big change. I own no property and less stuff than 5 years ago. I am pretty happy, but if someone looks at my life of today they could suspect that I am absolutely insane. Anything that rejects stability when you are about to turn 30 is rare. But not everybody is looking for the same things out of life.

Most of the times we accept and do things because “that is the right thing to do” and what everyone have been doing for the last hundred years. I remember a conversation I had with my mom about ten years ago and she was really surprised when I turned to her saying that not everyone came to the world to have kids. She insisted that what makes a couple complete is a kid. First, divorces show that having a kid does not make a relationship better or worse and second, I can point people out who have kids just because that is the right thing to do, the next step and they do not dedicate any time to their education, they do not spend quality time with them and they are just ready to have second, a third child, without thinking it twice.

I can understand that at my age my grandma already had two kids going to school but times have changed and being thirty today without a kid does not make you a rebel or strange. If I was single, no one would consider polite asking me when I have plans to procreate but as soon as you are married or in a stable relationship the questions rain.

Often, to do the things you really want you have to sacrifice other aspects of life. And doing what you dream of, whatever that is, gives you the real freedom and personal growth.

I will be a 30 year-old wanting to forget age numbers, not feeling old  and taking life as it comes. There is no need to push rules and traditions, there is no need to live life the way your grandparents chose to live it.  One day I will grow old and hopefully I will be a cool old lady, the type younger people approach for advice or just to hear a story.

I am still figuring things out for me now. I will celebrate my day the same way I celebrated my 28th and 29th, with my life path in front of me.

The big three zero has been a time of changes for me but not the changes that everyone would have expected.