Thanks, Sex & the City.

It's over. I'm thirty.

Allow me to present my little emotional crisis, pictorally represented by the lovely and talented (and clearly sober) Girl Hog:

SHUT IT.

Shut it was running on loop through my brain. I didn't want to hear it.

For the two days (or ten) leading up to the big day, I'd been feeling sort of upset about turning thirty. At moments, more than sort of. It's not because I'm afraid by body will break down tomorrow, not because I'm frightened of wrinkles, not because I feel unaccomplished or oldmaid-ish, not even because I feel terribly old. I don't feel old. In fact, I think it's hilarious that I am now such a mature sounding age as thirty. Me? Seriously?

What it is is more of a general melancholy. I feel sad. It is almost exactly the same as when I come back from a great vacation. The "post-vacation blues," I've named it. I guess it comes from the same place: I can't ever go back and do that again, and that makes me sad. Of course there are more trips in the future, probably just as, or more, awesome than the last... but, I can't ever go back and do that again. The same thing, with the same people, with the same excitement and true emotional and personal reactions.

My twenties (at least the last five years of them) were like that great trip that is just- over. Like September in Europe, it all came and went so fast, I didn't even see it go by.





















LET'S ROCK.

Just as it always happens after the great vacation-induced woes, the blues dissipate after a few days. It's time to rock. I just have to get used to the idea and force myself out of my self-indulgence. I'm mostly there now, three days into thirty, looking forward instead of back.

Ya know- I do believe, though, there is a place for some reflection on time gone by, how ridiculously fast it flies away from us... and what it all means for the future. That's why I let myself ride it out and just be bummed out, if that's how I feel.

I've been told my at least seven hundred women in the last week that the thirties are the best time of your life (also seven hundred have told me forties... fifties), and I believe it. I'm ready to rock.

Ciao, buddies.
-Nina

P.S. There are some fantastic things about birthdays though...




















Muchas gracies to everyone who took me out to dinner, gave me fun, awesome gifts, wrote me lovely, heartfelt cards (KT - you really warmed my heart, made me grin and made me walk just a little taller), sent me texts, voicemails... and listened and encouraged while I whined on your shoulder. Thanks, buddies.