So it’s been approximately half a year since my birthday, which means that I’ve been treading this world as a thirty year old for a little over six months now. Hooray for surviving this far! It’s not been messy at all (so far); no nervous breakdowns or panic attacks as of this writing, but maybe those’ll come in a few more months..? *Knocks on wood*

I’d like to say this though: as ridiculous or improbable as it sounds, I think that I have had some pretty legit realizations about who I currently am as a person. I know that it sounds trippy, but there is something pretty liberating about crossing over the threshold of this new decade. I don’t think I’ve ever been this confident about making decisions, big or small. Suddenly there is this surety that’s giving me peace of mind about the decisions that definitely wasn’t there before. I don’t know; maybe it’s just that by now I know myself well enough to differentiate between the situations I can and can’t handle. Also I guess there is the confidence gained from previous experiences where I had to literally scramble around to make things work. I never valued those experiences as they were happening to me but given the advantage of hindsight, those were the instances that taught me that while things might not always be perfect, they are usually salvageable.

I’ve also somehow been even more comfortable being alone. Ever since I can remember, I’ve always been somebody who’s more comfortable with a small number of people; I’m so not one for crowds. And while I still prefer to hangout with a teensy tiny group of people, I’ve grown more used to doing activities I’ve usually done with friends by myself. I can literally count in one hand the instances of me watching a movie with other people this year. I’ve also had no problems eating alone at a restaurant, an act that would’ve horrified the younger version of myself. There was this one day in Amsterdam where I felt like I’ve had too much socialization that I broke away from A and my new found friends from the tour and just walked around the city by myself. I didn’t actually get to see anything worth seeing, but the respite was enough to clear my head. My brief stint of solo travel when I went to Tokyo last year made me realize that it’s actually not that scary. I kind of can’t wait for the time when I can travel for a longer period of time by myself.

And finally, I’ve grown to realize that I have to actively choose to stay away from drama because it’s a sneaky little thing that can suck you in pretty quickly. I’m consciously steering away from people who love to involve themselves in drama and I’m trying my best to surround myself only with people who aren’t toxic. Office gossip was such a huge past time for me before but now I try my damndest to stay away from it. I’m sure that more than one person thinks that I’m weird for just having my earphones on all the time but truth be told, I’d rather listen to the Nerdist podcasts than be sucked in by the rumor mill.

So far those are the only things I’ve noticed but I’m sure that there’ll be a few more before I reach the big 3-1.