My Unexpected Crisis: What Turning 30 Was Really All About

I want to tell you a story about turning 30. More specifically, I want to tell you about the low-grade, persistent anxiety that shadowed my late 20s as that milestone approached. For over a year, I stubbornly referred to myself as being in my "mid-20s," well past the point of mathematical accuracy. I was clinging to a number because the next one, 30, felt impossibly heavy.

This isn't just a story about aging. It's a story about the collision of identity, cultural expectation, and the hard, necessary work of choosing your own path.

The Pressure of the "Respectable" Life

My panic wasn't abstract. When I paused to reflect on what was really going on, I realized that for me, and for the world I came from, 30 meant something very specific: you were a real adult.

You were supposed to have the markers to prove it: a marriage, a house, a car, kids on the way, and an accomplished career. I grew up in a conservative suburb of Sydney, and by my late 20s, my Facebook feed was a relentless parade of these achievements. Weddings, mortgages, and baby announcements. For the culture I was raised in, these weren't just life events; they were the very definition of respectability and success.

My Reality: The Bohemian Detour

My own life, however, looked nothing like that. I had moved to Singapore at 21 and started a respectable career as a teacher. But after a few years in a toxic work environment, I made a conscious choice to step away from the high-pressure track. I chose fun. I chose discovery. I chose to live in the present tense.

I spent my mid-to-late 20s having an incredible time. I traveled, I wrote for magazines, I had a rich social life. It was a deeply nourishing, epicurean stage of my development that I do not regret. By the time I was 28, I felt like I had lived a lifetime of incredible experiences.

But I had not focused on my career. I had no long-term plan, no savings, and I was far from the heteronormative ideal I had been raised in. For years, this didn't bother me. Until 30 loomed on the horizon.

The Collision: When Internalized Values Surface

The anxiety that gripped me was an identity crisis. It was a confrontation between the bohemian, present-focused person I had joyfully become, and the "respectable" person I had always been told I should be. The values of my conservative upbringing, which I thought I had rejected, were still there, living quietly in the back of my mind.

I was being haunted by a ghost. I had assumed that the life I was "supposed" to want would just... happen. But as I approached 30, I realized a hard truth: the life you have is the one you actively make for yourself. My fun, free-wheeling existence wasn't a phase; it was the life I was building, and it was taking me further and further away from the conventional dreams I hadn't realized I was still holding onto.

A Final Thought: The Beginning of a Conscious Choice

That period of anxiety was painful, but it was also a profound gift. It forced me, for the first time, to stop sleepwalking. It made me consciously examine the expectations I carried. It pushed me to ask what a meaningful life looked like for me, separate from the judgment of my family or the timelines of my peers.

I realized I didn't want to give up the joy and the commitment to service that had defined my 20s. But I also realized I needed to build a more sustainable future. That period of reflection was the genesis of my decision to become a therapist.

The process wasn't quick or easy. It took years. But the anxiety about turning 30 was the catalyst. It was the moment I stopped living a life that was happening to me and started building a life that was authentically my own.