Forgive me, but...

I assume (hope) this is normal but I started dreading my thirtieth on my twenty-ninth. Oh God! This is my last birthday in my twenties! was all I could think when blowing out candles and opening presents. And I should imagine that all of you ladies who have already surpassed my scary landmark view my current feelings with the same amused disdain I do that of my fifteen-year-old self's decision to not run away from home till eighteen so that I'd be able to get Sky.

I've looked this up, just so I don't feel like a lone-ranger-lunatic. Psychologists call it a 'pre-30 crisis', according to Alina R. Co, who wrote the first article I found on a Google search entitled 'dreading thirty.' She goes on to describe what sounds an awful lot like a mid-life crisis but early, where the woman starts to think about all she has achieved and whether it's enough, and starts to panic if she feels she hasn't achieved what she wanted in her first thirty years on earth.

And it's not a sign of a genuine lack of success for a woman to feel this way either. No one is immune! I read an article some time ago about the career women who had been in the workplace and climbing the corporate ladder since leaving university but hit thirty and took unpaid internships in completely different fields, in many cases leaving incredibly well-paid jobs. I have no recollection of where I read this so I apologise for lack of reference. All I remember is a woman with beautiful hair and a smart short-trouser suit standing beside the piece, looking chuffed to be earning no money for something she loved.

So it's not just guys who go through the whole mid-life crisis thing. We girls do too, now. I read something else that said it's really since women took a more equal footing in the world of work that this phenomena started to grow. When we were only allowed to have babies and make house we couldn't really afford crises because someone's nappy always needed changing and the grates needed black-leading (I heard that term once about old-fashioned housekeeping - no idea what it entails). Now we have this world of opportunity we feel that we should be achieving everything we ever wanted, and by thirty if we don't want to be complete failures!

I am seven months from the dreaded big 3-0 and already I have a list as long as my arm of the things I was supposed to have done by now and find it hard to look at the equally long list of amazing achievements. But it is reassuring to know that I'm not the only one. And it's just as reassuring to know that ten years from now I will re-read this blog and think exactly what many of you are thinking now: either "Aw, sweet little thing!" or "Bloody hell, get a life, woman!" To be honest, I think the latter is rather the point.