In less then a week I'll be thirty. Frankly I have felt like thirty for so long, the date is almost irrelevant. I was just remembering back to when I was 18 and taking grade 13* chemistry night classes. I had one credit left to obtain in order to get into University to study Biology so I was taking that class at night and working during the day. Anyways, wanting to be a good student (for once) I sat at the front of the class. This new seating arrangement landed me in a totally alien social strata (the attentive, myopic and suck-ups) and resulted in my befriending the two oldest students in the class, women in their early thirties who had completed highschool and University in other fields but had decided to persue the sciences. Both women had just spent the last ten or more years of their lives raising kids they hadn't anticipated and both were looking to change their lives.

Anyways, while I liked them both, I distinctly remember thinking that thirty was sooooo much older than me and so far in my future to be nearly incomprehensible. One of the women drove me home most nights and one night we had a discussion about age and turning thirty. She said that turning thirty had totally devastated her because she had (and probably still) believed the adage 'You can't trust anyone over thirty."

And now that incomprehensible amount of time has passed and here I am on the cusp of thirty. However, I am nothing but ecstatic about leaving my twenties. Finally I am hitting a number that reflects how I feel. I feel pretty much exactly thirty right now. And it's not a bad thirty. It's a good thirty.

And maybe part of the difference between my attitude and that of the chemistry class woman is that I trust myself and I know that I'm not about to magically slide into the spiralling evil void of being someone I don't want to be. And interestingly enough sitting in that classroom, alongside two women who were apprehesively pursuing lost dreams and a new path in life was where I finally let myself realise that what I thought would be my future; a career in the sciences wasn't something I wanted anymore.

*I should note that here in Ontario we had a grade 13 but sadly it was axed from the curriculum as of this year.