About the Project

What: 

I'm celebrating my 30th birthday by trying 30 new things, meant to broaden my perspective, challenge my assumptions, stretch open my comfort zone, and start healthy habits. It's inspired by the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, a 30-day journey of spiritual awakening. 

Why "The Birthday Exercises?"

When I was a kid, I sniffed at the blind, joyless grownups who dreaded their birthdays. I thought age had made them foolish, not wise; they wasted the days they had in worrying about the days' passing, and closed themselves off to the rather obvious delights of frosting, candlelight, and colored tissue paper gathered around mysteries. I swore I wouldn't be like them, and that I would look forward to my own birthdays, no matter how old I got.

Of course, I had specific expectations about adulthood and adult birthdays as a child. As a young adult, I read about the Things Every Woman Should Have (Or Know, Or Do) By Her 30th Birthday collected in checklists in women's magazines. Those lists never got under my skin: I never worried about knowing How to Roast a Chicken or having decided on the Handbag that would be my Statement. But what did get under my skin were the expectations about who I would be by the time I was 30 that were formed by the same child who promised to rejoice in each birthday.

You can probably guess what those expectations were. When I turned 29, I told myself to stay calm as I still had another year to find life-long love. That's enough to be nervous about, but I had more questions. I was in a job that I believed in and wanted to excel at but that felt like a bad fit for my gifts and weaknesses. I was still struggling to find my feet in a city that seemed worse than anonymous: intentional in its attempts to weed out the unworthy.

The coming year provided challenges that became opportunities, love found and lost, and moments of grace. I wrestled with discovering the way my gifts, temperament, and background were leading me to a vocation and a career in which I could be myself and be of service. I thought about the way I define my worth and my happiness by my relationships. As I reach my 30th birthday, those questions have taken on new meaning - but they're no longer a source of anxiety for me. Instead, they've become something quite positive - a mystery to rejoice in, and a puzzle to throw myself into. So I set off on my Birthday Exercises with arms open and a joyful heart.