With thanks, once again, to Lin-Manuel Miranda
🗣️ Internet nonsense. The events in the Royal family have pulled me back onto social media lately - which meant I saw this delightful example of text-to-voice going… off the rails somewhat.
🥓 Baconspiration . Anne Helen Petersen’s Culture Study Podcast did a fantastic deep dive into Kevin Bacon’s Instagram, kicked off by (among other things) this video (don’t scroll past that link! Trust me!). Highly recommend. Also - fun fact - because I was on University Challenge when it was presented by Jeremy Paxman, and because Jeremy Paxman has a Bacon number of 2, I have a Bacon number of 3.
👰 Weddings! You all know I’m a hopeless romantic and there are few things I love more than hearing people express their deep and true love for each other. I had the privilege of sharing a dear friend’s wedding day yesterday and it absolutely filled me with joy.
I used to work in digital, designing and delivering products and services through apps and websites. While that’s no longer the focus of my days, there are a few catchphrases from it that have stuck with me: ‘jobs to be done’ and ‘what good looks like.’
Part of Project: 30 on Purpose has been looking at myself and my friends, and thinking: this is what 30 looks like. There’s a meme that as millennials, we have no idea what we’re supposed to be doing. But I feel pretty comforted when I look at my pals, all muddling through in their different ways, great at some things and feeling a bit lost in other ways too. There’s no one right way - and no wrong way - to be 30. I have friends who have displays of hand-painted role play game characters in the living rooms, and others whose houses are taken over by the accoutrements of their children. I have friends with pink hair, and friends with traditional corporate jobs and the appearance to match (even if there’s a tattoo hiding up their sleeve…). I have friends working for huge international companies, and others who are self-employed.
Not only are there different ways to be at 30, there are so many different ways to appear, so many different ways 30 can look. Last week, I went for a haircut with a new hairdresser and she was shocked to find out we were the same age (apropos of a story about a charity shop customer who assumed I remembered the JFK assassination) - I had showed up in work-from-home comfy clothes, without a scrap of makeup on my face, and she assumed I was four or five years younger. Meanwhile, I’d assumed she was older than me, purely because she seemed so confident and in-control.
Similarly, I was talking to an older colleague at work earlier this week, and she mentioned that when she turned 30, she finally felt like she’d become a ‘real adult’ at work, and earned the right to be listened to. Then, she joked, instead of losing out on things at work for being too young, she started losing out because she’s a woman. (But women are equal now… right?). Coming back to the haircut - I’ve had 4-5 inches cut off, to take me back to my favourite length (inspo: Aubrey Plaza in White Lotus), and I feel so much more myself. I second-guessed, though, whether it was a good idea - so much of work now happens over video call, and I know that the shorter hair makes me look younger on camera. (I landed on ‘who cares’ but it took a while…)
One thing that was odd about my first few jobs after uni was that there weren’t many people around - and even fewer women - who were in that ‘3-5 years older than me’ bracket, who I could look up to as an example of what might be possible. As time has gone on, and I’ve moved jobs, I work with far more people in my general age bracket (sustainability is absolutely full of millennials!). There’s a lot said about having other people’s footsteps to follow in, but I see the footsteps as more like pathways marked out on a map. I can see where it’s even possible to go - what leaps have been made before, which steps might lead to which destinations - and more importantly, I can then make the choice for myself about whether I want to follow any of those routes.
And that’s part of project ‘30 on purpose’: learning that just as there’s no right or wrong way to be 30, there’s no right or wrong path to follow. Thanks for joining me on the journey.
Speak soon,
Lily
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If you liked this, you might like this explanation of Project 30 on Purpose,
Or the first post in the series:
Aww I loved this! I am 30(ish - on a good day!) and I have colourful hair even for my healthcare corporate job and I am rocking the corporate goth attire (but quickly learned that over-the-top skulls are frowned upon unless you're in orthopaedics, and I am not). Yay to expanding our horizons of what 30 looks like!
I love hearing about all the different ways we choose to grow older. My 42-year-old self is planning a bachelorette for a fellow 40+ year old. It’s her first wedding and she wants to party like we did in our 20s. Can we pull it off? I hope so :)