Life at 30 (two years later)

They say that by the time you turn 30 you pretty much know who you are and what you want out of life. In many ways I believe that to be true. While I was a mother for all of my 20’s, I still spent the majority of my 20’s making decisions that I later realized that I didn’t want. So yes, by the time I turned 30 I had a better idea of how I wanted my life to be and goals that I wanted to achieve. I set my plans in motion and two years later I can say that while I may not be totally there yet, I have made great strides in achieving what I want.

I entered a relationship over a year ago with the mindset that I was going to be me and he would learn to live in my world. Ironically, he had similar thoughts. About four months ago he and I hit a rough patch in our relationship. Our stubbornness and refusal to compromise, or rather stop being so selfish brought us to the decision point. It literally came down to make it or break it. Luckily, we have a strong foundation of love and that managed to keep us together through that rough time. And because of that foundation, we are learning to not be so stubborn. We recognized that the way we communicated was more destructive than productive to our love. We are learning to respond rather than react. We are learning that it just takes a little bit of giving on our parts to make the other happy. We are learning to combine our two worlds instead of expecting the other to live in our own.

Yes, life may begin at 30, but good communication and relationship skills are not things that will magically appear just by willing it to do so. Those, like with everything else in life, are things that you need to work hard towards. The difference between life in your 20’s and life in your 30’s, at least to me, is that you recognize what works for you and what doesn’t and that you realize that all goals require effort and you take the steps necessary to achieve them. Every journey begins with one step.