You Didn't Dream About HR
And I hate to break it to you—we’re past getting "discovered" at our mall’s Yogen Früz®.
Note: When I started writing in spring of 2020 I had just turned 30 in the first-ever lockdown. It was peak “is the world ending?”. People were clearing grocery store shelves, New York City was digging mass graves, and I had to cancel my Dolly Parton themed Birthday party (I know).
As a soon-to-be-33 year-old who now wears orthotics and has a knee that reacts to low pressure systems and Chinese food, turning 30 today feels a bit cute. However, turning 30 was my personal awakening to the idea that time marches on—with or without us. And *sadly*, real action is required to carry out like… our dreams n’ stuff (I know).
I’ve just turned 30. It’s a worldwide pandemic and I’m quarantined in a small cottage in Point Prim, PEI (population 1,670) without proper wifi. For those who have yet to reach 30—let alone hit this milestone at the beginning of a world-ending, dystopian plague—I assure you that it’s a time of reflection.
It should be mentioned that plague or not, people lose their shit on their 30th birthdays. We’re talking tears, lashing out, falling down drunk, apathy, and ecstasy all in one night. It’s a moment of reckoning and something that is best chalked-up as: the deep-seated revelation that time forges on and wearing pigtails ever again is straight-up creepy.
Dangling two little parted spindles from a pointed crown should never happen after 30—and admittedly, for some more than others, this is a lot to take in.
As I approached my 30th birthday, a birthday that I dreaded but also scripted into an evening of white trash grandeur and a likely barf, I was forced to reexamine everything. My fateful, transitionary night from the 20's to 30’s, was cancelled with the first lockdown. Instead, I, like everyone else, was stuck at home thinking, “will I have to wipe my ass with wrapping paper?”.
Turning 30 means entering legitimate adulthood. 30 is where toothpaste stained hoodies and unpaid taxes lose their charm. It’s where summers meld together and responsibility calls even our “cool cousin” into taking a job they hate to pay off their Dodge Charger and bank cash for the creative project we openly doubt will materialize.
Being in your 30’s feels like officially surrendering the rest of our youth holdings to the next generation: a crop-top wearing, selfie-taking, gaggle of lip injections who don’t remember life offline and have lost the dignified art of self-deprecation.
Simultaneously, being 30 feels like a sacred snippet of time. It’s rare splice where we can taste yesterday’s carefree adolescence, but we’re straddling the line of full-fledged adulthood with a multi-step skincare routine and insurmountable debt. It’s a time where we can still feel what it’s like to walk in the shoes of the young girl facing rejections and feeling out of control—only our shoes are low-heeled Clarks and we’ve brought snacks (hey, we can be a total bitch when our blood sugar drops). We are standing on the bridge of opportunity with a clear view of the past and a sharper glimpse into the future.
Note: For those of you still in your 20’s, it should be warned that turning 30 is very disorienting. You feel neither here nor there. Naturally, Britney Spears’ 2001 emotional ballad, “I’m Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman” comes to mind. During this stage of I-still-have-slumber-parties-only-with-better-wine-and-a-mouthguard, you’re likely to buy your first organic banana, start carrying a purse pen, and throw out underwear with blown out crotches. You’ll accept that you’ve officially graduated from Urban Outfitters to Anthropologie.
Warning: If you vocalize any grief about turning 30—or frankly, being in your 30’s at all—you will piss off Every. Single. White. Haired. Adult. Upon turning 30, a piece of you will feel like a large-titted Greek widow wearing head-to-toe black polyester. There is a legitimate mourning period for our perceived end of youth—whether it happens to you at 25, 30, or 40—and it’s your goddamn right to bask in it. Don’t let anyone take it away from you.
In my 20’s, while I wasn’t just sucking lollipops on lawns and smiling up at the sun, I wasn’t taking full responsibility either. After all, our first 30 years are reserved for going to school, taking steps forwards (and backwards), and acquiring a taste for red wine and blue cheese. I spent my early adulthood giving too many fucks, plotting schemes that I openly doubted would materialize, and being struck with waves of anxiety that I wasn’t further ahead.
I used the excuse, “I’m still young” to avoid creating the life that I wanted.
But post-30, in a more uncertain world than ever, this laissez-faire incubation period feels done. There’s an overwhelming feeling that time goes by quickly, and if we don’t step into our own lives now, when will we? Plus, now that we’re bonafide adults (if you’re under 25, keep suckin’ the lollipops), it’ll be a hop, skip and a jump before we’re in a retirement complex slurping Ensure® and arguing with our cyborg grandkids that the 90’s were the “real golden era of music”.
**Queues Saturday Night by Whigfield. Case closed.**
Hearing that “time is precious” is a basic bitch, inspirational postered adage that is meaningless until one day it smacks us in the face. Suddenly, whether the catalyst is a lockdown that forces even Great Uncle Rick to run an internal audit, a milestone birthday, or something more devastating, time feels finite and sharp in a way that it never did before. And when it strikes, it forces you to dig deeper.
With it, comes the realization that passivity is no longer passable.
So, as the licensed operators of adult brains that have patched over *some* of the teenage holes, there comes a time where we need to take ownership of ourselves and start moving towards a life that matches who we really are. Figuring out what we want is our most important mission. And once we know, we have to go full flying squirrel off of our scraggly ass branch to get it.
If we don’t, we suffer.
So, the question for you is: what are you willing to leap for? And how many adorable acorns are you willing to drop to the forrest floor in pursuit of greater heights?
Note: If these squirrel, self-help-y analogies are too much too soon, I get it. I’ve just had a diet coke, 4 cocktail shrimp, and I am feeling sassy.
In other words, if we can all agree that life is short and that finding and doing our thing is of the upmost importance, would you report in for your HR Coordinator position for eternity (no offence to the brave soldiers who hire and fire)? Or would you dare to get a little weird?
The point here isn’t to make you feel like time is running out. It isn’t. The point is to highlight the fact that we have nothing to lose and if we don’t take action we could end up working in HR (okay, I’m sorry, I’ll stop). And even worse, if we ignore our natural inclinations in favour of comfort, we could lose so much of ourselves that we think we like working in HR (last time, I promise).
It’s up to us to figure out where we want to go and begin trudging towards it. I think I know just the place to start.
Next week, we time-travel.
This book intro and excerpt was inspired by my 2020 essay, “Travel but don’t be annoying about it and 29 other things I learned before 30”.