29

I'm 29. Somehow, it seems like that makes a difference. Every woman I know over 30 flipped out a little around that birthday. Could be astrology, but I doubt it. Could be that nice round number that makes us panic... but it seems like it should be something more. (I didn't panic when I turned 20, after all.) But there's something.

All my life, I've been told that women don't really "hit their stride" until their 30s. Is it because we all flip out when we're 29?

In my case, it feels more like growing a brain than flipping out. What the hell have I been doing for the 28 years preceding? Why did I think it was ok to do the stuff I've been doing-- to practically beg people to use me, and then feel bad about it when they did? To allow things to happen to me for the sake of some misplaced sense of "love" that I, in no way, should have to put up with? To get shoved around in my little rowboat, when really, it's my rowboat?

No. Just no. No more of that.

And I will hit my stride in my 30s. Wait and see.