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"    When K, my college roommate, turned 30, I took a bus from New York City to suburban Boston for her birthday party. The morning after, mostly in tact, if not slightly hungover, we walked from her house to a local coffee shop. On the way, we discussed how we felt about turning 30 (at the time of this conversation, I was still 29). It turned out that neither of us had had a checklist of things we&amp;#039;d hoped to have done by by then.  K&amp;#039;s father had told her how proud he was of all that she&amp;#039;d accomplished already\u2014graduating college, having a successful career, getting married, owning a house\u2014and that he hoped she was proud of those things as well, which she was. I, on the other hand, had a slightly (read: extremely) different concept of what success meant. It didn&amp;#039;t involve owning property or marriage, but a totally different reality. &amp;quot;I feel like my thirties are going to be like a second adolescence,&amp;quot; I told K. I don&amp;#039;t know that I&amp;#039;d ever thought about it that way before, but when I said it out loud, I realized it was true. K and I were roommates when we were college sophomores. This was the year we attempted to go to our first-ever fraternity party, but foiled our own plan by drinking too much to make it up the hill, and collapsing nauseously in our beds at 10:30 pm. The same year, she put on a shower cap and spandex shorts and danced in the doorway of our room to &amp;quot;Ice Ice Baby.&amp;quot; And it was the year my mother died. I was nineteen then, but I felt old. My mother had been sick with cancer for my entire life, on and off, and as her only child, I had assumed the role of her physical and emotional caretaker. I went with her to the doctors, memorized information about medications and doses and staging, kept a running list in my head of her appointments\u2014even when I left for college and didn&amp;#039;t go to them anymore. While I had known her death was coming, it succeeded in changing everything about the way I lived. Suddenly I was completely unmoored and financially responsible for myself, with no clue how to do it. My grandmother, who played the role of my other parent, was not equipped in any way to deal with either my mother&amp;#039;s illness or her death, and declined physically and mentally almost immediately after my mom died. Although my grandmother eventually went into a nursing home, she became another person I was responsible for in my twenties, at least emotionally. She struggled to understand why I couldn&amp;#039;t just stay in the town where I was raised, like she had, like my mother had. She expected me to behave as though I still lived with her, and since that wasn&amp;#039;t going to happen, I trekked to her house from school in Boston on most weekends. But we could no longer talk like we did when I was younger, and visiting her was frustrating and tiresome. I felt I had an obligation to keep doing it\u2014after all, she had helped raise me\u2014but there was no connection anymore. I was 25 when my grandmother died at the age of 96, but as far as I was concerned, the rest of my twenties would always be tinged with fear and resentment.  I did do some things in my twenties. I crashed my car, pierced my nose (fine, had it pierced), smoked some pot, had some ill-advised relationships. I also stopped writing fiction, something I&amp;#039;d done for my entire life, my most sincere and most consistent love, convincing myself that it was a waste of time. But my 30th birthday marked the first decade of my life in which I was responsible for no one other than myself\u2014a clean, unfettered space, when I could do and be whatever I wanted, no explanations necessary. I was in charge. I could fall on my face every day, all day, if I wanted to, and, for better or for worse, there was no one around to tell me to pull it together. There was no loneliness, there has been none, only relief and joy and a feeling of possibility. I am an introvert, in the purest sense of the word, and I crave alone time like others might crave caffeine or chocolate. Now I can have as much of it as I want. It might sound trivial, but it is a victory to be able to decide to go away for a weekend, or a week or longer, without having to check in with anyone. It&amp;#039;s important to know that I can do these things, although it&amp;#039;s hard to adjust to not having to look over my shoulder. I feel free, but according to United States pop culture, self-exploration is not what your thirties are for\u2014especially if you are female. Your twenties are when you experiment, process, screw up\u2014all in the name of landing somewhere solid and traditional in your late twenties. In your thirties, you&amp;#039;re supposed to be serious, settled. You&amp;#039;re supposed to get to the business of real life, which is typically seen to be marriage (or a relationship that looks like it&amp;#039;s going to end up there), babies, and financial stability. Typing this, I can&amp;#039;t get over how ridiculous the concept is\u2014the idea that everyone will end up, or will want to end up, in the same place. That the world is so predictable, so boring, or perhaps even so kind, that by the age of 30, we will have figured anything out, or even be in a position enough to fake it. I am currently four and a half years into my thirties, and it is good here. There&amp;#039;s finally space in my head\u2014to work and move and think about what I actually want and what I don&amp;#039;t. I can see things more clearly. I live in a tiny room in Brooklyn, probably the tiniest I&amp;#039;ve ever lived in, but it has light and books and it&amp;#039;s mine. I&amp;#039;ve been traveling\u2014Central and South America, the Middle East, Los Angeles\u2014sometimes alone, sometimes for a job. After a lot of therapy and false starts, I was accepted into a graduate program\u2014a Master&amp;#039;s of Fine Arts in creative writing\u2014that started this summer. I&amp;#039;m letting myself have that. I&amp;#039;m letting myself have everything. I&amp;#039;m making an art out of living backwards.  For more from Chanel, follow her on Twitter @chaneldubofsky. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.cosmopolitan.com/lifestyle/advice/a4594/30s-are-my-20s/?click=cos_new>