30, Flirty, and Finally Becoming

Turning thirty isn’t always champagne and confidence.

Sometimes, it feels like standing under the shadow of every decision you made in your twenties — unsure if they were brave or just reactive. Society tells us by now, we should have it together: a career, a title, a five-year plan, a clear sense of self.

But what if you’re still figuring it out?

What if that’s not failure, but freedom?

Since I was a child, the message was clear: choose one thing.

Pick a major that defines your life.

Select a hobby and stick with it.

Be someone. Be something. Be singular.

But I’ve never been singular.

I’ve always had layers.

I loved math and earned a degree in physics. But I also paint. I sing. I design. I craft with my hands. I capture beauty through photography and movement. I communicate. I sell. I market. I dream in different languages of creativity and logic.

I’m all of these things. And for years, I felt ashamed of that.

"You always start things but never finish them," my mother used to say.

"You need to be consistent. Pick a lane."

Those words stuck. Not because they were cruel — but because they echoed the world. A world where linear paths are praised and anything else looks like confusion.

I used to envy people who knew. The ones who chose their dream early and followed it like a compass. But I was never that child. I tried. I failed. I tried again — this time at something new.

Still, I hear that voice:

Why can’t you just be one thing?

Some days, I feel behind.

I see friends with titles, homes, direction — and I feel stuck in the in-between.

Not a beginner, but not quite “established.”

A work in progress, in a world obsessed with completion.

But then I look closer —

I see everything I have created.

I see every skill, every interest, every unfinished project that still taught me something.

Maybe I’m not lost.

Maybe I’m just assembling.

Like Iron Man — inventing mid-air, one crash away from a breakthrough. A one-person powerhouse constantly refining, evolving, building. Alone in the workshop, misunderstood by many — but with a vision no one else can see yet.

I’m not failing.

I’m becoming.

So no, I’m not “just” flirty and thriving at thirty.

I’m curious. I’m chaotic. I’m still figuring things out.

But I’m no longer ashamed of that.

I don’t need to fit into one label or path to be worthy.

I can be a scientist and a singer.

A marketer and a painter.

A creator and a strategist.

A dreamer and a doer.

My identity is not what I stick to — it’s what I live through.

If you're thirty and still trying, I see you.

If you’ve never been “just one thing,” you’re not broken — you’re brilliant.

If you're questioning everything at a stage where everyone else seems “settled,” you're not behind — you're just building a different kind of life.

So here’s to us — the Iron Men and Women of this messy middle.

The shapeshifters. The many-layered.

The ones who still believe becoming is better than arriving.

Because maybe thirty isn’t the finish line.

Maybe, just maybe — it’s the origin story.