When I asked Mom what she did for her 30th, she says she doesn’t remember — “I already had you for half a year!” Dad doesn’t remember what he did for his either. He says every day is his birthday.
Birthdays blend together after a certain point, even the milestone ones. You have other things occupying your brain: kids, career, mortgage, marriage, aging friends & parents, cartoons, etc etc …
I hoped I’d have something brilliant to say once I turned 30. But after nearly a month of mellowing out and letting the old bones sink in, nothing brilliant’s popped out yet. I am stuck with myself. Ta-da! Maybe that is the golden realization.
Here’s what I did for my 30th: my brother Jeremy took the Amtrak from Washington DC to visit me, and we had two nights of wandering around Manhattan — complete with pub crawls, saying hi to neighborhood friends at Hong Kong style diners + Yu & Me Books + the Book Club on E 3rd Street. And then late-night soup dumplings. Samson joined us, too! My first meal of the 30s was a midnight pepperoni pizza from Joe’s thanks to Samson. My first dessert was birthday soft-serve ice cream at the office with Jeff. All this while reading lovely birthday wishes throughout the day.
Roxie tells me that throwing a massive birthday party for yourself and expecting people to come and celebrate you is a very American thing to do. Only her dogs will get birthday parties, no humans she says.
I did not throw a party. How hypocritical of me, enjoying other people’s parties but not wanting the trouble of throwing my own. If I threw one you would have been invited, of course. 😉
I felt anxious and stressed during the final week of my 20s. Have I done everything I wanted to do? Did I take enough risks to warrant all the work and goodwill that has been put into me?
Mom and Dad were responsible for a lot more by the time they were in their 30s, and the same goes for all my grandparents and beyond. Meanwhile, here I am getting the chance to do just about whatever I want in my dream city — so long as I can financially support myself. It’s almost like I have a moral duty to be a baller in order to make all those generational sacrifices worth it.
How fortunate to have my brother visit me. The last time I had a milestone birthday with a special guest was my 21st, with Maja visiting all the way from Denmark. Brian would come very soon after from Ireland. I’ve been lucky again and again.
Advice (or mostly reassurance) from friends in their 30s:
Everyone I ask says the 30s are so much better than the 20s.
- At 30, you can still have 2-3 cycles of major fuckups and still be okay! This is from Josh and Pip — by major fuckups, they mean getting in a relationship with the wrong person or two or three, making a horrendous career switch, or moving to a new city you absolutely hate. If each major mistake takes a year to embed yourself into and another year to get out of, then you have at least 2-3 big swings before life gets more complicated — and then you’ll have enough material for an excellent memoir. Maybe the only irreversible thing is having a kid early or doing really hard drugs.
- You have so much agency over your life. Well, duh. But sometimes I need some lunchtime cafeteria conversations to get my head out of my butt. If there are any changes I’d like to make in my life, now is an excellent time because you have the resources, energy, and will to do so. This also goes for narratives I have about myself. Three other narratives or identities I’d like to rewrite: 1) I stink at math, 2) I stink at being handy / making things / fixing things with my hands, and 3) I am quiet as a mouse in larger group conversations.
- For relationships, “you still have time” before getting into one. Here’s where I get the most conflicting advice. Friends who are already parents or who’ve been in relationships for over a decade are often in the “no rush” camp. At the same time though, if you’re considering a relationship with someone, why not start now and have those extra years of sweet memories to build with them? Or if you’ve been a floater for most of your life, why not give it a shot — there are some things that you can only find out once you get into a long-term relationship. Both Samson and Tony have told me this independently without meeting each other. If two close friends from two separate friend groups are saying the same thing about you, they’re probably onto something.
- Kids change everything, even preparing & thinking about them. Today and for the next few years, I will exercise my dude privilege and not worry too much about fertility. And yet, I can’t ignore it entirely. I see friends who are already freezing their eggs, some paying $18,000+ for the whole process. They show me the needles and tell me about how double-digit egg counts are great, or how they only got a few the first time around so now it’s time for round two, which means more $$$. And then I see interviews where stars like Michelle Yeoh open up about not being able to have kids despite really wanting them, and how it took her years to stop blaming herself for it. The stakes feel higher now.
- Your body will start to have aches, but that doesn’t mean your spirit has to slow down. You can still be playful, and even keep pockets of whismical-ness as responsibilities pile up. 30 is far too young to be grumpy and pessimistic about trying new things, and the same goes for being 60. (Cheers to Amy on this one).
Anyways, my takeaway is that: 1) the 30s rock, and 2) I’ll probably have my heart broken a few times and that’s okay, and 3) I should do what I want before I have kids.
Perspectives I hope to develop and hone in my 30s:
Sometimes I’ll encounter a sharp Asian man in their 50s (whether in print, in-person, or online) and I’ll think oh yes, I would like to be as perceptive and handsome and generous in spirit as that guy when I grow up. Here’s what I imagine it takes:
- #1. Taking the long approach to friendships and relationships — and keeping the door open for old friends to return. I think this is especially important in the 30s, where everyone’s path is rapidly diverging regarding careers, partners, and families. Towards my late 20s, I was able to have reunions with people I hadn’t seen in almost a decade or longer, thanks to having more bearings on my career and having the resources to go far, far away. A decade was long enough for many of these friendships to return full circle.
- #2. Having a playful approach to imposter syndrome. Sometimes imposter syndrome is warranted — I have no business fixing your car engine. But I’m hoping the lack of confidence itself is a signal to do something about it rather than freezing up (e.g., if I feel like an imposter about crunching numbers, I can read a book, talk to an expert, yap about it to a friend) — even if that “do something about it” is deciding not to do something about it.
- #3. Making urgency my friend – at least when it comes to taking action on learning new skills and responding to old friends. I feel like there are two things I need to learn sooner rather than later: language learning is one and the other is craft (like writing, for example). If I look at my favorite Asian guy authors who are fathers (Viet Thanh Nguyen, Hua Hsu, Charles Yu), they all honed their craft to a certain professional level before becoming a parent. Starting from square one while doing parenting duties isn’t impossible, but it’s definitely trickier. And as for responding to lovely messages from old friends – well, if I can write a message to a teammate within the same business day, surely I can carve out the same time for homies.
- #4. Deliberately seeking out the company of tender & compassionate people — especially if they’re older or have every excuse to be angry and bitter, but choose not to be. They’re often very interesting and curious, too. And just being next to them pushes me to be more kind and gracious.
- #5. Prioritizing late-night conversations with dear friends. I already do this, but I hope I don’t lose sight of this. Conversations with old friends or even curious strangers have a specific time and place: everyone has to be in the right mindset, the right setting, the right mood. Sometimes the conditions all line up, and I can’t expect the same result to happen the next day. So I will continue to brew that coffee or hold my eyelids open if I need to.
- #6. Pulling, not pushing. What I’m trying to say here is that I’d love to build a life that is so engaging with strong relationships and learning new things that I don’t feel the need to say or do “please like me” behaviors wherever I go. I hear this is another fantastic perk of the 30s — not worrying so much about what other people think, and having the confidence to pursue your own particular interests. And then other people can enter and exit as they please. Eventually you meet other people who match that same vibe and stick around, and not once did any of you feel it was forced or rushed.
What do I want to do in the next decade?
Some ideas to start with:
- Write a book by 40. (What to write though?)
- Take one new skill beyond research and be able to do it at a professional level. (But which skill shall it be? Ceramics and bartending classes have been cool so far, although I do not have dreams of being a master potter or mixologist just yet).
- Lead international research studies in the field with confidence. Live out my boyhood dreams of pretending to be Anthony Bourdain, and now Lucas Sin. And making a living from it, ha!
- Contribute to the broader research literature (even if it’s just one cheeky article), and find a way to have my feet in both industry and academia. Being a full professor is out of the question without a PhD. But what about being an adjunct? Students do bring a lot of energy and excitement to the work, and as exhausting as teaching can be, it is fulfilling. I hear from friends who adjunct that having even 1-2 awesome students per semester in an otherwise infuriating class can make the whole ordeal worth it.
- Speaking and writing in Cantonese vernacular — enough to read a book (at least The Little Prince), read and contribute to online message boards, and sustain a 1-hour conversation with family & family friends and the Chinatown uncles and aunties. After Cantonese can come Mandarin.
- Learn how to drive & be comfortable with manual transmission before electric cars and autonomous vehicles go everywhere. I have no use for this in New York City (no car), but if I’m traveling or ever living elsewhere — I think driving manual is so much more fun and engaging.
- First bike-camping trip. I hear about friends cycling around Taiwan, Japan, and even to Montreal, and all that sounds wonderful.
- Visit all continents, including Antarctica.
- Fall in love, get married, have two kids, etc etc. If none of the other things, then hopefully at least I’m in love. I’m also not trying to raise a family inside the same 300 square foot / 27.87 square meter studio by the time I am 40, but if that’s the case, so be it.
If the 20s were all about gathering twenty different inputs all at once and gorging on as many experiences & perspectives as possible, I feel like the 30s are more about being intentional with the moments of free time I still have left.
I’ll still bake in lots of time for experimenting & good relationships though, I hope that will never change.
