Like many people, I spent my twenties creating a mental picture of what life at thirty would look like.
Not necessarily extravagant. Just settled.
I imagined a home, a husband, maybe a couple of kids, and a career path that made perfect sense. I assumed I would have life figured out—or at least feel like I did. Thirty seemed so grown-up when I was twenty-two.
Instead, I entered my thirties single, traveling frequently for work, living out of hotels for months at a time, juggling side hustles, and seriously considering whether I wanted to pursue another degree after just finishing one.
Life has a sense of humor.
Before the pandemic, my life looked pretty ordinary. I had a stable job with a nonprofit organization that I genuinely enjoyed, a cute apartment, a long-term relationship, and friends I’d known since high school and college. It wasn’t flashy, but it was familiar. More importantly, it felt predictable.
Then 2020 arrived, and like so many others, I learned just how quickly plans can change. Losing my job forced me to rethink more than my career. It forced me to reevaluate my assumptions about success, stability, and what I thought adulthood was supposed to look like. Ironically, one of the biggest turning points in my life came from something I had talked myself out of for years: military service.
Joining the Air Force Reserve wasn’t part of my original plan. In fact, I had convinced myself that the chapter wasn’t for me. Yet that decision ultimately opened doors I never expected. It exposed me to people from different backgrounds, introduced me to places I had never imagined visiting, and eventually led me into a civilian career that allowed me to continue traveling and serving in ways I never could have predicted. If twenty-five-year-old me could see my life now, she’d probably have questions.
Why are we living in hotels?
Why do we own land but not a house?
Why are we talking about YouTube and business ideas?
And why do we suddenly know so much about travel loyalty programs?
Honestly, I still have some of those same questions.
But somewhere between career changes, deployments, graduate school, and learning to enjoy my own company, I’ve started to realize something important: maybe life isn’t supposed to unfold according to a universal timeline.
Social media makes it easy to believe everyone else is ahead. Engagement announcements, baby showers, promotions, home purchases, and carefully curated highlights have a way of making ordinary life feel inadequate. But the older I get, the more aware I become that everyone is navigating their own challenges, even if they aren’t posting about them. Also, success isn’t always measured by milestones. Maybe it’s simply having peace, flexibility, meaningful relationships, good health, and the freedom to reinvent yourself when necessary.
Maybe success is simply building a life that feels authentic to you. That’s not to say I don’t have goals. I still dream about owning a home. I hope marriage and family are part of my future. I want to continue building businesses, traveling, and creating meaningful work. But I’ve stopped believing that those things need to happen by a certain age to matter.
Life doesn’t award bonus points for sticking to the schedule you created at twenty-two, fresh out of college. If anything, my journey to thirty has taught me that some of the most beautiful opportunities arrive disguised as detours. The plans that didn’t work out led me to places I never would have gone. The doors that closed forced me to knock on different ones. And the uncertainty I once feared has given me stories, experiences, and perspectives that I wouldn’t trade.
Thirty looks nothing like I imagined, and I’m starting to think that’s a good thing. Because maybe the goal was never to have life completely figured out.
Maybe the goal was simply to keep growing, keep learning, and keep embracing the unexpected. Ask me again at forty. I’m sure I’ll have a different answer.