Today I turn 34 years old.
One's thirties, I was told, cement who you are. The doubt and insecurities and growing pains that popped up throughout your twenties? Gone. In their place? Confidence. Certainty. Joy.
And I just don't know.
My thirties have been good, I think. I am, it's true, more cemented in my marriage. My career. My home.
And that's a pretty good list, honestly. It kind of feels like those three things should be more than enough.
But my faith has been repeatedly tested over the past four years, and not just in the ways that immediately come to mind, like leaving the denomination of my childhood, but in trusting my life and my future and my career and my business to the God I serve, in believing He will do with it all what He wills. (I struggled just typing out that sentence.)
In the past three months alone I've made difficult business decisions, and they were incredibly painful, and I didn't feel like some powerful #girlboss, nor was I really treated like one. Instead I felt torn and conflicted, and I've struggled with strangers' opinions of me ever since.
And the older I get, the more people seem confused by my life's choices. It's almost like my 20s were an expected time to do nonsensical things, like getting married young or moving to a small town or quitting my job to work for a couple of years in a bookstore. But now that I'm in my 30s, things like owning a bookstore and waiting to have kids and actually planting my life in a small town are even more confounding.
None of that sounds like the promise of certainty and confidence I was given.
I'm thinking about all of this, not just because it's my birthday, but because I spent all last week at a conference where I spent every day feeling a little bit like an outlier.
Now, let me be clear: I am 100% confident I belonged at this conference. It was for American booksellers, and I, by definition, am an American bookseller. And I attended this conference not only because I had the option made available to me, but because I was literally invited. I served as a panelist; I offered my expertise; I interacted regularly with strangers, and I did so without too much anxiety or hesitation.
But I also spent a lot of the conference feeling like a little bit of a weirdo. Like both not enough and too much, in all kinds of ways. And that's no one's fault, and I don't mean it in a high school way, where I want you to quickly come to my defense and stroke my hair and tell me yes, I absolutely belonged.
No, I mean it sincerely. I don't drink, and I'm super introverted, and I don't like big crowds, so networking in a room of 800 people is truly my definition of hell. I don't want to go out to bars to talk about the industry; I like to learn in a classroom. I'm not great at small talk; I tend to only go deep. My store is located in the rural South, but we're constantly innovating; we're small, but we're also growing. I no longer admire leaders who lament all they have to do and wonder where the time is to do it; I want to be among people who delegate, who don't see exhaustion or martyrdom as the only path forward. For all these reasons and more, I felt a little bit odd.
And here, then, I suppose, is the gift of my 30s. I didn't attend every networking function, and I didn't feel bad about it. When I did attend, I sought out three different people to talk to, and then I left (my personal networking rule). I met all kinds of booksellers, and some were like me and liked me and some weren't and didn't, and some conversations were awkward, even terrible, but others were lovely. And some of the people I'll never see again, and some I will, but it won't be until next year.
So I wonder if the gift of your 30s isn't confidence or certainty or joy, because all the decades have those and their counterparts, insecurity and doubt and grief.
I wonder if the gift is simply freedom.
I did not fully belong at this conference.
And who cares?
I went to classes and I networked and I offered my own expertise and experience. I walked away with takeaways for my store; I saw ways we can do better and how we're already ahead of the game. Some of the things the industry's doing I agree with, and some I don't.
And that's okay.
Because immediately after the conference, I came home. I came home to my small town where I used to not really fit, but now I do. And it's not because I morphed or changed to become someone Thomasville would like; instead, I'm me, and that's enough. I don't attend every cultural gala or quail hunt (those are real examples), and you know what? No one cares. I stay home when I need to stay home, and I attend events when I need to attend events. I am exactly who I am, and it's enough for me and for the people I love.
Last week's conference was hard, but I did it, and I did it well. I don't have any regrets, and it's okay that I felt like an outlier or an outsider some of the time. I'm not meant to fit everywhere. I fit where it matters most to me.
When I look back on all these last few months have held, I wonder if 20-something Annie could have done it. Maybe in my 30s, the decisions are still hard and confounding, and not everyone will agree with everything I do. But in my 30s, I can live with the knowledge that that's okay.
Maybe this is the freedom of 30. Maybe this is the gift.
