Tag Archives: 30

Working On My Friendships (or Things Are Better In My 30’s)

Posted on February 9, 2018 | Comments Off on Working On My Friendships (or Things Are Better In My 30’s)

I’ve had a couple of friends turn 30 in the past few months. For so many people, 30 is a milestone and makes them freak out a bit. Maybe they aren’t where they want to be in life or they wonder what happened. I did have some ideas in my head of where I wanted to be when I turned 30, but my life was so different from what I was expecting that it didn’t really bug me that I wasn’t there. For me, turning 30 was pretty fun. I wasn’t too worried about the age and I’m still not that worried. I think age really is just a number and it doesn’t have to mean more than that. And whenever a friend is turning 30 and they are worried, I always tell them that so far my 30’s have been so much better than my 20’s.

My 30’s could be better for so many reasons. When I turned 20 I was still in college and not totally happy with things. I didn’t love college and I ended up graduating early so I could be done faster. I enjoyed learning, but I always felt like a bit of an outsider there. And even after college ended, I still had that outsider feeling. And part of this could be related to feeling uneasy with the friends that I had. They never made me feel like an outsider, but I always felt like I had to work harder at the friendship than they did and that they didn’t view me as close of a friend as I viewed them.

Those friendships ended very abruptly and it was a bit traumatic at the time, but reflecting back at it I know it was for the best. I was holding myself back with those friends and when I had to go out and find new friends I was just myself and didn’t worry too much about it. I don’t have a tough time making new friends, but it’s tough to make new friends who are more friends than acquaintances. And it took me time to learn that the new friends I was making easily weren’t necessarily long-term friends.

But lately, I’ve been able to strengthen a lot of my friendships. I think it was just due to random timing, but it’s nice to know that my friendships with people who I really care about are stronger now and I feel more confidence with having them as my friends. Even though I haven’t been hiding or diminishing myself with my friends, when my friendships are stronger I feel so much more free and that helps me discover who I am in a way. It’s so weird to need to have strong friendships to figure out myself, but I think because of some of the negative things that have been said to me in the past I need to see how others see me to see myself in a more truthful light.

I also think that there was a bit of just letting go and not caring when I turned 30. While I do still want to be liked by others, I also understand now that I can’t necessarily control what others think of me. If I am being my real self, they might love me or hate me. But I shouldn’t have to change myself to make others like me. For so long I really did just want everyone to like me. And when someone was mean to me I tried to see what I did wrong so I could fix it. That’s what happened when my best friend from college ended our friendship. I reflected back on what could have happened and tried to ask around to find out how I could make things better again. But in the end, I have no clue what I did and there was no way for me to fix it. It took me a while to get over it, but now I understand that whatever did happen was something that she felt and nothing I could have done would have changed it.

Today happens to be my half birthday. In 6 months I’ll be 35. That age doesn’t scare me (even though one person who recently turned 30 told me that she doesn’t feel old because you aren’t old until you are 35). What I’ve been able to accomplish and create in the first 4 1/2 years of my 30’s easily surpass what I did in the 10 years of my 20’s. And I’ve still got half of my 30’s to go, so I can’t even start to imagine what I’ll be able to get done by the time I’m 40.

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Dirty Thirty (or A Look Back At My 20s)

Posted on August 9, 2013 | 2 comments

Holy moly, I’m thirty now! This is crazy! I remember growing up and thinking that by thirty I would have my own tv show, be married, and probably already have a kid or two.

Yeah, none of that has happened yet.

But instead of looking back at what didn’t happen in my 20s, I wanted to take a look back at the accomplishments I did have. So here are the important (to me) highlights of my 20s.

I graduated from LMU. I actually was able to graduate in 3 1/2 years because I took some summer school classes and did independent study. I think the fact that I graduated early is something to still be proud of.

I had a “real” job. In 2006, I had a job doing radio sales coordination. It was a salaried job and was a standard 9-5 thing. I hated it. I was miserable a lot because I couldn’t do any acting stuff. But at the time it was the best thing for me because I was working there when I had my hip surgery, so I made money while I was recovering. I was planning on quitting and went to tell my boss that, but he let me know that they were going to lay me off within a month or two, so I stuck it out so I could get the unemployment.

I’ve had dozens of day jobs. I’ve worked everything from movie studio tour guide to dog walk. From personal organizer to substitute teacher. From data entry to transcription. From babysitting to volunteer coordinator. I’ve seriously worked pretty much all types of jobs except retail or being a waitress. Technically right now, I only have my one job, but I still do other random jobs on the side to help out.

I’ve gotten an agent and have gone out on amazing auditions. I’m still not quite where I’d like to be in my acting career, but I’m enjoying the journey. I’ve gone out for small one line (or even one word) parts, and I’ve gone out for the one of the main characters in a new tv show. I’m just waiting for that perfect part for me, but I know it’s coming. And I love that I have such a supportive team working with me.

I’ve found a workout that I love. This is huge for me. In the past, workouts have been just something annoying that I have to do. I’ve had personal trainers before because if I didn’t have that appointment to go to, I probably would have skipped the gym. But now I’ve found something that I actually look forward to doing (I’m even going to a class today to start 30 off right!).

I’ve started this blog and have become a much more honest person with myself and with others. This really is a huge thing for me. My whole life I’ve been pretty secretive about the things I find shameful about myself. But doing that really only makes it worse. By putting it all out there, it’s no longer something to be ashamed of but instead something to learn from and get over. The personal growth that I’ve had since starting this has been incredible (it’s almost better than going to therapy). And the support that I’ve gotten from people who I’ve known for years or who I’ve never met has been truly a gift.

Well, there are a couple of highlights of what I’ve done in past decade. Today, I’m starting off my 30s in an awesome way. I have the day off (because I’m working all weekend this weekend) so I’m going to spin class and then having a fun gathering at Bodega in Santa Monica. Whether or not we’ve met before, if you are local to LA, feel free to come by my party at Bodega. The more the merrier and I want to ring in 30 with as many awesome people as possible!

And since I don’t have a photo (yet) of me celebrating 30, here’s a cute photo of me from my 1st birthday!

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Happy Birthday Kate! (or Yay For My Friend Of 21 Years!)

Posted on June 13, 2013 | 2 comments

Today is my best friend Kate’s 30th birthday! First of all, happy birthday to you, Kate! As I’ve done for a few other birthdays, I’ve decided to do some of my favorite photos of my 21 year friendship with Kate (yes, we became friends when we were 9).

I don’t have a ton of pictures from before college on my computer, but I do have one from my sweet 16. For my 16th birthday, my mom allowed me to invite a couple of friends to drive down to southern California so we could go to Catalina! It was amazing! I invited Kate, another high school friend Jackie, and my cousin Leah.

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When it was time to go to college, I was coming down here to LA (I went to Loyola Marymount) and Kate moved to Minnesota. But since I was starting school before Kate, she agreed to drive down with me to LA. She and I were in my car, and my parents were in theirs (and they had most of my stuff since I had a little car then). It was one of our first “grownup” adventures.

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Until last year, Kate and I had not lived in the same city since high school. But she came down to LA to visit (her sister also lives here).

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And I traveled to see her as well. I went once to Minnesota (where it was seriously the coldest I’ve ever experienced), but I visited her in Seattle more. Since we’ve been friends for so long, we both know that we are dorks. And on one visit to Seattle, we discovered that Kate had an old CD-ROM (remember those?) of Oregon Trail. So of course we put it in her laptop and played a couple of games.

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It’s been really exciting to have Kate living in the same city as me now. Of course, she and I have had a lot of happy hour adventures together. And I’ve mentioned it before, but Kate is my 5K buddy. And we’ve agreed to virtually cheer each other on when we can’t do the same races (I know she’ll be cheering me on while working during my race on Sunday).

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So Kate, thank you for being such an awesome friend to me! You have been there for me through thick and thin (literally) and have supported me through every step! You are like a sister to me. And I’m so grateful that you are willing to listen to my rants every once in a while.

Cheers to you on turning 30! I’m looking forward to celebrating your birthday at the spa soon (I’m sure I’ll be writing a blog post about that in the future). And to all you readers, thanks for letting me use a blog post to celebrate my best friend.

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