Turning 31 and Finally Feeling Like I'm in My 30s

Growing up, my parents always celebrated my birthday at home. Though I didn’t experience Jollibee parties, themed setups, styled dessert tables like the ones that fill my social media feed these days, those birthdays were filled with the people who mattered, food my mom prepared herself, and a cake with my name on it.

My parents made sure every birthday felt important, even if the only people there to mark it were the ones who had been there since the beginning.

I think about that a lot now. How they gave weight to something I didn’t fully understand yet at that time.

As I grow older, birthdays stopped feeling like something I was counting down to. Instead, it started feeling like something counting me. It became less of a celebration and more of a check-in and a pause to notice how much time has passed and how little of it I actually remember holding onto.

The fear of being 29 years old

I remembered being slightly anxious about turning 29 because it meant that I was on my last 20s year. It became a countdown year and thinking like I’m almost out of my time.

Then, 30 came, but it was fine and actually more than fine. My husband surprised me with a mañanita.

Mañanita is a tradition we have in the Philippines where family members and friends gather in the early hours of that person’s birthday, usually before the sun is even up, to surprise you with songs, food, and a little celebration.

It’s derived from the Spanish word, mañana, which means morning. It not a big party, but people who value you choose to lose sleep just so yours starts with their voices in the room.

I’d been to other people’s mañanitas before. I’d helped plan them, sung at them, woken up at ungodly hours for them. Yet, I had never had one of my own until 30.

It was 4 in the morning when I started hearing voices and singing outside. My half-asleep brain registered it as just another election campaign jingle. Last year was the height of the 2025 elections and at that point, we were all so used to being woken up by megaphones and loud speakers strapped to the tops of vehicles that it had basically become background noise. I thought it was politics doing its thing again.

It took me a few seconds to realize the singing wasn’t moving and was just right outside our bedroom. That’s when it hit me about mañanita.

I didn’t come out of the bedroom right away. I’m an INFJ and being the center of attention is something I have to mentally prepare for, the way other people prepare for public speaking. I wasn’t ready. My hair wasn’t ready. My face wasn’t ready, but I went out anyway, because what else are you going to do when your friends are standing outside your bedroom door singing for you at dawn?

As my husband and his friends kept singing, I stopped thinking about how I looked or what I was supposed to do with my hands. I just started taking it in. The fact that my husband and his friends had pulled this together and showed up at 4 in the morning to do this for me was something I was grateful on my 30th birthday.

Then, later that day, my best friend showed up with a cake that her sister baked. I have always been an unapologetic sweet tooth. So, a cake is never going to be the wrong move with me. Yet, it wasn’t even the cake, but the fact that she came over, that we got to spend even just a few hours at home, and that the day didn’t need to be anything bigger than the people I value showing up in their own ways.

After that, there was no dramatic shift, no sudden feeling of being old, and no moment where I looked in the mirror and didn’t recognize myself. It was just another day.

I don’t know if you resonated with this, but nobody told me that we spend so much energy bracing for the goodbye to your 20s that you kind of forget the other half of the equation. You’re not just leaving something. You’re entering something.

While I was busy somehow mourning the decade I was leaving behind, I completely skipped over the part where I was supposed to actually arrive somewhere new.

31 is when it finally sinks in

Thirty came and months went by. I somehow spent the whole year still feeling like I was 29 with a new number attached. It didn’t sink in yet. However, 31 is different.

There’s no milestone energy around 31. Nobody throws you a big party for it. There’s no countdown and people blowing up about how wild it is that you’re in the last number on a regular calendar.

Part of why this birthday feels different is also because of how I’ve been doing birthdays in general lately. I don’t anymore make mine public on social media. There’s no countdown post, no birthday month reminder, and no kind of storytelling telling to everyone what day it is.

I’ve also been pretty quiet on social media in general because I’ve been a lot more intentional about how I use it (I actually wrote in another blog post about using social media respectfully and intentionally. You’ll find it useful, especially if you’ve been feeling the same kind of pull to step back).

What I thought 30 would look like

Growing up, I thought 30 was old, like old old.

Some of my friends had parents who were already 30 by the time we were 5 years old. Some people I know already had three kids by 30. That was just the picture I had in my head of what 30 looked like which is being married, settled, and with a whole little family in tow.

However, that wasn’t me at 30 and it isn’t me at 31 either. I’m married, but I don’t have kids. I’ve made peace with that being its own valid version of this chapter, even when it doesn’t match the picture I grew up with (I wrote a separate post about being married at 30 without kids, which I’ll link below if that resonates with you).

It’s been 13 years since my debut

My debut was 13 years ago.

A debut in the Philippines is a big celebration for a girl’s 18th birthday. It’s our version of a coming-of-age party. The 18 candles, the 18 roses, the 18 treasures, the cotillion dance, the long gown, and the whole thing. It’s the night you’re supposed to step into adulthood and be surrounded by the people who watched you grow up. For a lot of Filipinas, it’s one of the biggest celebrations of your life before your wedding.

Thirteen years is not a few years back and it’s not too long ago. That’s more than a decade and an entire stretch of my life. It’s the same gap as a kindergartener and a junior high school student.

The other thing that snaps me right out of any “I’m still young” delusion is realizing I’ve been out of college for 10 years.

In those 13 years, I finished college, got my first job, transitioned to other career paths, travelled to different places, experienced a pandemic, got my MBA, met my husband, and got married. I made friends who became family. I lost some too. I figured out who I am when nobody is watching and somehow figured out who I am when people are.

That’s actually a lot even when it didn’t feel like anything was happening. I believe that’s the trick of time when you’re in the middle of it. The big stuff doesn’t always feel big while you’re living it. It just feels like a regular day and another week. It feels like waiting for something to start, when really, the something has been there the whole time.

Eventually, that’s the part nobody tells you that the years you’ll look back on and call the good ones are the ones that felt the most ordinary while you were inside them.

Looking forward on the next 13 years

If 13 years went by that fast, then in another 13 years, I’ll be 44. That’s the same stretch of time I just lived through. If the last 13 years moved this fast, the next 13 will move just as fast, if not faster.

The honest question I’m sitting with is whether I’ll feel ready for it. Will I feel like a 44-year-old by the time I get there? Will I have it more figured out? Will I have kids by then? How many? One, two, or none at all? Will that part of my life look completely different from how it looks now, or almost exactly the same? I don’t know. I’m not forcing myself to know. Not every question needs an answer right this second. Some of them need time to unfold on their own.

You can’t slow time down. You can’t bargain with it. You can’t get back the years you spent worrying about getting older. The only thing you can do is pay closer attention while you’re in it, notice the ordinary stuff, and stop waiting for life to feel like it’s started, because it already has.

How my values has shifted since 18

When I look back at who I was at 18, as dramatic as it sounds, I barely recognize her.

At 18, almost everything I cared about was tied to how I looked and how I was perceived. I worried about my body and whether I was pretty enough, thin enough, and polished enough to be the version of myself I thought I was supposed to be.

I had been battling an eating disorder since I was 12 and by the time I hit my debut, that struggle had silently shaped a lot of how I moved through the world. I just didn’t have the language for it yet.

Funny though, I thought I was going to be a beauty queen. That was my dream and I had a glimpse of that world. I attended a modeling workshop and got close enough to it to know what it actually looked like up close, which is very different from how it looks from the outside. I’ve written more about that experience and what it taught me about beauty standards, modeling, and disordered eating in a separate post, which I’ll link below if you want the longer version.

I Used to Root for Beauty Queens Until I Realized What the Crown Actually Costs

I No Longer Dream of Becoming a Beauty Queen

Orthorexia Eating Disorder: My Story and Recovery

To cut the long story short, that life wasn’t what happened for me. It took years to understand that it was a redirection.

What I value now looks almost nothing like what I valued then. At 18, I wanted to be admired, I wanted a life that looked good from the outside, and my worth was something I tried to earn through how I appeared. At 31, I want a life that feels good from the inside, even on the days nobody is watching and where I’m being genuinely unapologetically in my own self.

I care about peace now. I care about the people who stayed. I care about my health in a way that has nothing to do with a number on a scale. I care about doing work that is line with my values. I care about the small things that the 18-year-old me would have rolled her eyes at.

If I could go back and tell her anything, it would be that the life she’s bracing for isn’t the one she actually gets. It’s that the life she will get is so much better than the one she was trying to perform.

Over to you

If you’ve made it this far, thank you for sitting with me through all of this. It’s a lot of thinking out loud for one birthday post, but that’s kind of the point. These are the things I wanted to actually say this year instead of just feeling them and moving on.

Before I go, I’d love to hear from you. How did you feel when you turned 30? Did it land for you right away, or did it take a year or two to actually sink in? For those of you already in your 30s, has this past year felt different than the ones before it? I’m curious, so drop it in the comments below.

I wanted to say one more thing before I close this out.

The next time someone asks your age, say it proudly. Growing older is not something to be ashamed of. It is a privilege not everyone receives. Some people don’t get the chance to see another sunrise or to experience everything life has to offer. Aging means you’re still here.

The person you were one year ago thought differently and saw the world differently. That’s proof that you’re evolving. Every experience has made you wiser. Every struggle has made you more mature. That’s the beauty of life.

That body you’re so quick to judge? It’s not failing you. It’s a canvas of your life. Every wrinkle and every change tells a story. You can’t live a full life and expect your body to stay the same as it was at 18. Your body changes because it carried you through every stage of your life. So be thankful for every cell your body fought to keep you here.

Lastly, no matter how many years you collect or how your physique changes, the heart will always stay young. Young at heart, wise in spirit, and grateful to still be here.

If you’re here and breathing, you’re already blessed.

Here’s to being unapologetically 31.