Am I Old Yet?

I can’t escape the fact that I am fast approaching thirty.

Now, I know it’s not exactly what you would call old in the scheme of things, or at least I hope you wouldn’t, but for some reason entering your thirties feels like a point where a lot of things will change. We leave behind the carefree days of our twenties and often find ourselves taking on responsibilities and obligations like mortgages, marriages, and kids (although not necessarily in that order).

They say there are a lot of 'advantages' to being in your thirties, like more self-confidence; having smaller, closer groups of friends; getting somewhere in your career; maybe even finding your ‘life partner’ or becoming parents. But as my friends and I discussed at a recent thirtieth birthday party, there are some common tell tale signs that you have started the transition to becoming old (and maybe, dare I say it, a bit like your parents):

1. A ‘big night’ is leaving a bar/club/ party around midnight, just as your younger friends are starting to arrive.

2. Hangovers from said big nights no longer mean feeling a bit seedy, but involve days of dark sunglasses, no loud noises and Berocca for recovery.

3. You buy clothes for their warmth, comfort and practicality rather than to make fashion and style statements. Seriously, where the hell can I find a coat with a decent wool content these days?

4. You drink wine that costs above $20 a bottle and eagerly discuss the ‘blackberry notes’ and ‘smoothness of flavour’.

5. You enjoy blue cheese.

6. You spend most of your weekends at weddings, baby showers or birthday parties for the offspring of friends.
7. A get together with more than three friends is no longer a spontaneous gathering at the local pub, instead taking months of meticulous planning and several rounds of date/time/venue deliberations.

8. They remake your favourite television shows or movies, and teenagers call the originals ‘retro’.
9. An expansion on point 8; flavour of the month boy bands cover your favourite tunes and ruin them. Worse still, their fans have never heard the originals. Who is The Who, anyway?
10. What the hell is YOLO? Totes!
11. You take up gardening, sewing, crafts, photography, furniture restoration, baking or gourmet cooking.
12. You listen to new music on the radio and lament that it all sounds the same.
13. You remember using VHS tapes fondly, when really, they were crap. Oh, and the Betamax debate, you remember that.
14. You realise the 1980s was thirty years ago, and kids born in the early 1990s are now adults.
15. And where the hell is my hoverboard?

So there it is. If six or more of these ring true for you then I’m sorry but you are no longer young, hip and happening but are now transitioning into an old fart.

But on the bright side, at least you’re not in your forties (apparently that’s a whole other list).

-Eliza Murphy