As a twenty-something, I had this idea that my thirties would be the best decade. I pictured my thirtieth birthday as the threshold to “real” adulthood. Once on the other side, I would feel more comfortable in my skin; more settled. Not only would I know what I wanted to do with my life, I would be on a clear path to achieving my dreams.
As it happened, the day I turned 30, I was living in the U.S. with no work visa or savings, clinging to a marriage that was struggling under the weight of my depression (I wrote about that experience for Refinery29 if you’re curious). I found my feet again in the years that followed and have been lucky enough to experience many wonderful things, but my thirties still haven’t provided the linear path I expected. For every question this decade has answered another one has popped up in its place.
Our twenties are permissive. We are expected – even encouraged – to make mistakes and false starts. The logic is that we are laying the groundwork for our thirties, the decade when we step into our potential and move full steam ahead toward our life goals. But for me and so many people I know, it hasn’t gone 100 percent to plan (and even when it has, there will inevitably be a plot twist sooner or later). We are all continually trying to figure it out.
The Legacy Years was born from many vulnerable conversations I’ve had with friends about how to build a meaningful life that balances connection with vocation, how to define your identity in the face of competing roles and responsibilities, and how to cope when you feel disappointed, left behind, or displaced from the conventional sequence of milestones.
If our twenties lay the groundwork for our thirties, then our thirties lay the groundwork for the rest of our lives. It is a decade that asks big questions about what we want to nurture (particularly for women, of course, who are told their fertility “falls off a cliff” at 35 and whose earning potential apparently peaks at 44 years old, a full decade before men FFS). It forces us to grapple with the future repercussions of what we choose to prioritize or forgo.
And that’s assuming we even have a choice. It’s an uncomfortable fact that many life outcomes are beyond our control.
All this is to say, it’s an intense time!
My goal for The Legacy Years is that every one of you will see yourself reflected in this project in some way. That you will know it isn’t just you who’s wondering whether it’s too late to change careers, or whether you should freeze your eggs, or how to start over after heartbreak, or how to feed your ambition while you’re still breastfeeding your baby etc.
Like me, the women I interview have each boldly pursued their career aspirations while grappling with the implications of a ticking biological clock. Each has a very different set of circumstances, with individual triumphs and struggles, and I’m certain you will find nuggets of wisdom and moments of solace in their diverse stories.
My biggest hope is that this will become a safe and supportive space where a community can thrive, so please don’t be a stranger! Drop me an email or a comment and introduce yourself. And if you know someone who might benefit from The Legacy Years, it would mean the world to me if you would share this email and/or the podcast with them.
Thank you so much for subscribing. More soon – including the first episode of The Legacy Years podcast, which features Kristen Newman, a successful screenwriter, author of What I Was Doing While You Were Breeding (the undisputed best memoir title of all time), and mother to a little girl conceived using a donor egg.