I enjoy being thirty, I drink my thirties as a liquor: I don't wither away in an early retirement copied on carbon paper. Thirty is amazing, and also thirty-one, thirty-two, thirty-three, thirty-four, and thirty-five! They are amazing because they are free, rebellious, outlawed, because the agony of waiting is over, and the discontent of decline have not begun, because we are finally lucid at thirty.
If we are religious, we are devoutly religious. If we are athiests, we are convinced athiests. If we are doubtful, we are doubtful without shame. And we do not fear the mockery of the children because we too are young; we do not fear the reproach of adults because we too are adults. We do not fear sin because we understand that sin is a point of view, we do not fear disobedience because we found that disobedience is noble. We do not fear punishment because we know that there is no harm in loving each other if we meet, to abandon each other if we get lost: we must not make more accounts with the school teacher and we should not even make them with the priest of the holy oil. We make them enough ourselves, with our pain of grown up. We are a field of ripe wheat, thirty years old, not too sour and also not dried: the flowing sap within us, with the right pressure, swells with life. Each of our joys is alive, each of our sorrows is alive, we laugh and we cry as no one ever will again, we think and undetstand as no one ever will again. We have reached the top of the mountain and everything is clear up there, the road that we climbed and the road that we will go down. A little breathless and yet fresh, you will never again sit on the edge to look backwards and forwards, and contemplate our luck, and why it is not so with you. How did it seem to my forefathers crushed by fear, boredom and balding? But what you have done you have done. What price do you put on the Moon? The Moon is expensive, I know. It costs each one of us dearly, but no one can put a price on the value of this cornfield, no one can put a price on the value of this mountain peak. If it was worth it, it would be pointless to go to the moon, it would just useful staying here. Wake up, so stop being so rational, obedient and wrinkled. Stop pulling your hair out and languishing in your equality. Stracciatela the carbon copy. You laugh, you weep, you are wrong. Take it to punch the bureaucrat that watches the time clock. I tell you it with humility, with affection, because I value you, because I see you as better than me and I would like you to be much better than me. Much, not so little. Or is it too late by now? Or the system already bent you or swallowed you up. Yes, I must be that way.
I was 30 years old on March 27, 2012, I celebrated greatly, with a trip of four full days between Milano Marittima and Valencia, to finish up on a weekend "en la Isla" (my lovely Ibiza).
I was waiting a lifetime these 30 years.
I always waited for them with eagerness, imagining who knows what, convinced that my life would have taken who knows what turn. I was sure, in any case, that at 30 years old I would be a woman, no longer a kid, or a young girl, but a woman.
A woman aware of her own identity, of her own limits, of her own expectations.
I thought many things, but in reality, after this fateful day the months passed and nothing happened. I remained a bit disappointed. Going from 29 to 30 was not "such a big deal".
Same job, same life, same places, same friends.
In the end, however, towards October something unexpected happened, a company "crisis" (they called it that, I prefer to avoid commenting in this place) badly upset our work roles and habits, changing our shifts and making worse the quality of our professional, as well as our personal, lives.
After a lot of anger,
I made of this negative moment,
a positive turn.
