Turning 30

I turned thirty almost 2 weeks ago. The Friday before last to be exact. It was not even close to the way I had imagined I would turn bring in the day. I imagined a night out, lots of beer, dancing, and basically a through and through party for myself. Instead, I cut the customary cake at 12 with family, woke up pretty much on time, sorted out stuff at home, cooked for Zo, fed her, dropped her off at the Daycare for a couple of hours and went shopping with The Dude at that time, had a nice regular lunch with some beer (hello, some beer is a given!), picked Zo up, returned home, made her sleep and then cooked Cheese Maggi with lots of oregano, garlic and Jalapenos for myself and The Dude, savored that, and went to sleep.

The week before however was one of the most luxurious vacations we’ve had. We travel quite a bit, but somehow we do not find it very sensible to spend money on luxurious stays, because we never stay at the place really! We always visit the hotel to sleep only. But this time with Zo, and the fact that we were doing a 13 hour long (one-way) road trip with her, we decided to go all the way. And tasted some really luxury amidst the very green coffee plantations in Coorg.

What does one do in a place like Coorg one might ask. Soak it up. The greenery, the prettiness, the nip in the air, the flowers, the birds and butterflies, and of course the food. The whole week, which I call my birthday week, though we returned two hours before the clock struck 12, was all about hogging. People who have read me for a while know that I have managed a pretty controlled diet for some time now. No butter, no ghee, no extra calories when you can avoid it. But here, we let go. Richness in food was a staple. I won’t go into the details, but let’s just say that for every day we stayed there, we managed to finish a whole 100 gram slab of  butter between us during breakfast. Yep. This apart from all the sausages, and fried eggs. Oh, also, I rediscovered the awesomeness that is warm toast slathered with salted butter and Mixed Fruit Jam. Heaven.

Now we are back, tending to our lives and the routine. It seems pretty much the same though, this 4th decade of my life when compared to the last. The welcome I received from the ones already on the other side was as generous as the goodbyes from those I left behind on the other. I responded to one such welcome from a cousin with a “Hope it is fun on this side”. She replied saying that for her it was, because the 4th decade got her two people who matter the most to her now, her husband and child. And I realised that in my case, for a large part of the last decade (6 and a half years to be precise) I already had The Dude. Zo has been around for just more than a year. So in total, this decade will be more Zo-ful an year down the line, and more Dude-ful a whole 7 years later. So like I said, not that much change after all. Don’t ask me what this analysis was for, but I just wanted to add to all the drama.

In general, I have decided to take charge of my life better. Both of us have. We have been lucky for a long time to have a lot of support which made life simpler for us. And we have kind of let things be, or happen at their own time. But The Dude feels we need to be a little more responsible, and the thirty year old me agrees.

I have also decided to give the 10k run a shot next year. I have never been the running kind. No sports, no athletics, generally lazy. Even in gym , I only walk on the treadmill, or cycle. Running needs stamina, and I never had enough. But recently, after I reached my goal weight, it’s gotten boring to do the same gym routine over and over again with no goal. So I decided to move on to stamina. Running. I usually walk at 7kmph for 20 minutes. So I decided to give running a shot and started doing 2 mins of running at 8kmph between 3 minute walks at 7. The aim was to reach 10 continuous minutes in a couple of months, but I am assuming all this working out has already helped me a bit, and I reached that goal in a week (insert applause). Now the next aim is 20 mins of continuous running by year end. And eventually, the 10k run next year. Fingers crossed.

There are also a lot of Zo updates, but she deserves a Zokipedia post. So I will stop doing the diary entry kind of post now and get back to work. I know this was a very run-of-the-mill “I ate, I slept, I woke up” kinda post (as opposed to my usual enlightening posts), but a girl (if you can call a 30 year old that) with back to back calls and meetings from 1 PM to 7 PM today, needs some therapeutic ‘me’ time, even if it is just on the blog. This was that.

Kindly adjust. And be nice to me. I am officially old now.