Lost In Your 30s

With baby showers by day and raves by night, and growing up colliding with going out, the fourth decade is having a personality crisis. ZING TSJENG reports from the middle-ground minefield.

- ZING TSJENG

"BABY IS READY FOR VISITORS," my friend Lily texts. My weekend is shaping up in a way that may be all too familiar for some people in their thirties: I'm meeting a newborn on the same day my other mates are planning to go to an all-night rave. I hoist a tote bag of pastries-a gift for the new mum-and ponder how surreal it all is. This is not how I imagined growing up.

You know that period between Christmas and New Year, when the world is holding its breath and waiting for life to restart? That's how I feel at 35. Call it "millennial betwixtmas", where people in their late twenties and thirties are trapped between the carefree younger years and looming adulthood. It's a disorienting state of affairs summed up in a viral Tik Tok by British comedian Ali Woods, which describes the confusion of having two distinct friendship groups in your thirties: One that monologues about house deposits and baby scans, and another contemplating dramatic life decisions (getting into a throuple, doing ayahuasca, moving to Argentinayou get the gist). "I have never related so much to something," one viewer commented. "What a ride [your] thirties are."

"At 30, a lot of us thought we would have a checklist of life accomplishments," says Woods, who is currently prepping for his Edinburgh Fringe show. "For most people who follow me, that just isn't the case. So I guess a lot of us feel trapped between two options to settle down, despite that sounding boring, or to continue living spontaneously, despite that sounding scary." If the transition from the yuletide season to a new year feels flush with melancholy, millennial betwixtmas has the same whiff of ennui about it.