30 is the new 20? And 40 before 40.

So, it's the year 2020! I remember memorizing all the Wawasan 2020's visions from the Sejarah textbook sentence by sentence, word by word, only that they did not come up in the SPM Sejarah Paper. 😂

The year 2020 means the year I would be turning 30!

Is it for real? The big three-oh?

Just this morning I discovered a strand of silver hair amongst the black ones. I yanked it out and just laughed in disbelief. Aging is inevitable. The melanin had slowly ceased its production, LOL. I remember plucking my mom's silver hair when I was young. Now I have it myself! If I lived well enough until the age of 40, I hope I can just laugh merrily at the mirror while looking at the mounds of silver hair I have on my head. 

Instead of lamenting of how old I've become, I actually don't mind turning 30. I'm not that scared of getting old. For me, 30 is the next big adventure. A whole new adventure as a working adult woman. When I was 20, it was an adventure of transitioning from teenagehood to adulthood, figuring out my career pathway and well, trying to make sense of the world and all that it contains, remember all those angsty, emotional feeling of quarter-age syndrome? I've survived that phase! Yaay to me~

Plus, you know. Life in this world is temporary. I seek solace in this fact. Thus I don't really care about silver hair and well, wrinkles on my face (I have one at the corner of my left eye- it has been there since I was 20, LOL). But it doesn't mean I stop caring about my appearance. I still want to look good for my age. I want to age gracefully. Like Audrey Hepburn, Seniwati Sarimah and Zeti Aziz. Like my mom! She looks 10 years younger than her age and I am not exaggerating. Thus I need to take good care of my health. To eat healthily, exercise regularly, religiously apply sunblock and eye cream and try to maintain a positive attitude throughout the day! The last one is really important. 

 I shall be the best version of myself. That is the best thing of turning 30. It's like a really prime age. You have a stable job and income. You can do whatever you want. You finally accept who you are. You can make your own choice. You own your life and you are responsible for how you live it!

I have this book titled '30 before 30' by Marina Shifrin. It chronicles the author's journey of achieving 30 things before she turns 30. She made that bucket list when she was 20. So she had 10 whole years of achieving those 30 things. But me, I bought it (and got the idea of making the list) when I was 28. HAHA.

But like I said, 30 is the new 20. I can start from now. Making my own list of 40 things to do before I turn 40. I don't want to pressure myself by making sure I achieve all those things. Life is not a series of a list of things you have to do by this and that age. But, why not? Maybe I will learn some important and valuable lessons while trying to complete all those 40 things in my bucket list. Just like Julie Powell when she attempted all 500 plus recipes of Julia Child in 365 days. (I watched Julie and Julia and I love anything by Nora Ephron). I might not achieve all 40 stuff. I might only achieve half of it, or even less. But it's okay. At least I tried. Life is short. You have to try all sorts of things. (NOT THE ONES THAT DESTROY YOURSELF like alcohol, drugs and such).

So yes, why don't you and I make this '40 before 40' list together? Let's make 30 the new 20, 40 the new 30 and so on!

Gonna make the list now!