Finding Joy in Aging: How I am Celebrating my Thirties

There’s a peculiar alchemy that happens in your thirties. If you’ve managed to transmute the wild dreams of your twenties into reality, you find yourself yearning for new horizons to conquer. Today, on my birthday, I pause—as I always do—to trace the contours of who I’m becoming.

“This is perhaps aging’s greatest blessing—all those years behind you become a constellation of experiences, guiding lights for the path ahead.”

Celebrating my Thirties

My thirties has been off to a better start. Last year found me celebrating my birthday in Nigeria, wrapped in the warmth of family and friends, grateful for the steady ground beneath my feet. As I noted in my opening paragraph, my twenties was a whirlwind- a laundry list of goals I hoped to achieve- including planning my migration, going through the crucible part of grad school, and the delicate art of putting down roots in foreign soil. Your twenties, after all, are spent chasing dreams like shooting stars, hoping to catch each one in your outstretched hands.

Now in my thirties, birthday’s brings a different kind of awareness. Aging, I’ve come to realize, is its own gift—a permission slip to inhabit yourself more fully, to engage in conversations that dive beneath the surface, to draw boundaries with the confidence of someone who knows their worth. It means no longer auditioning for spaces that never felt like home. Yet here’s the beautiful paradox: while you’ve built this stable foundation, you find yourself craving adventure. The challenge becomes how to keep your life thrumming with excitement without dismantling the sanctuary you’ve built.

So, I’ve asked myself what a new challenge in my thirties looks like. One truth has emerged, and that is committing myself to learning- It is the one thing that never stops and continuously inspires new challenges I undertake. Another idea crystalizing with each passing year, is the awareness that I can adjust my pace, take moments to breathe, but stopping is not an option. This is perhaps aging’s greatest blessing—all those years behind you become a constellation of experiences, guiding lights for the path ahead.

A Note on Birthday Traditions

My birthday celebrations have evolved into a carefully choreographed symphony of details. For half a decade now, Mercyshairextensions has been my steadfast partner in crafting extensions for my hair, never failing to deliver quality hair with impeccable timing and service. Each morning of my birthday begins with a customized breakfast spread from Lady Camellia—a beloved patisserie, which I reviewed in this post.

My outfits themselves are a ritual unto themselves, planned weeks and sometimes months in advance to reduce any stress for my day. Each year brings two or four carefully orchestrated wardrobe changes, but this year, I sought just one outfit, something that would embody metamorphosis—an outfit to herald a season of blooming. My search led me to the Australian fashion house Romance Was Born whose designs capture this moment of transformation.

I’m often overwhelmed with gratitude for the tide of good wishes that flows in each year, and this year is no different- a reminder of how love marks time as surely as any calendar.