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It almost seems a rite of passage for every 29-year-old woman to have a moment where they completely freak out about turning 30; “Am I on the right career path?” “Should I be with the person I will marry?” “Why aren’t I with the person I will marry?” “Wait, why aren’t I married?”
Emma Watson has some advice for any single woman turning 30 who has felt society’s pressure to “keep up”. The Harry Potter alum will celebrate three decades around the sun next April and originally said she didn’t understand what the big fuss was about. “Cut to 29, and I’m like, ‘Oh my God, I feel so stressed and anxious,’” she told British Vogue. “And I realise it’s because there is suddenly this bloody influx of subliminal messaging around. If you have not built a home, if you do not have a husband, if you do not have a baby, and you are turning 30, and you’re not in some incredibly secure, stable place in your career, or you’re still figuring things out…There’s just this incredible amount of anxiety.”
Starring as Meg March in the new Greta Gerwig directed film Little Women, Watson has the career path sorted. She’s dating too, as she told the outlet, but no matter how those dates go, she says she’s found happiness being her own partner. “I never believed the whole ‘I’m happy single’ spiel,” she said in the interview. “I was like, ‘This is totally spiel.’ It took me a long time, but I’m very happy. I call it being self-partnered.”
Describing her character, Watson says for Meg, feminism comes down to making a choice and being happy with that choice, something that rings true in our own lives when comparing ourselves to our friends. “Her choice is that she wants to be a full-time mother and wife…To Jo [played by Saoirse Ronan], being married is really some sort of prison sentence. But Meg says, ‘You know, I love him and this is my choice and I’m really happy and this is what I want. And just because my dreams are different from yours, it doesn’t mean they’re unimportant.'”
If you’re still feeling a little funny about turning 30, here’s an Instagram post from Australian beauty mogul, television producer and writer Zoë Foster-Blake. (I was tagged in it on my 30th and since, I send it to all my girlfriends on the eve of their 30th birthdays because it honestly hits the nail on the head about the incredibly exciting chapter you’re about to enter.)
“Any time a woman is turning 30, I grab her arm, and look her dead in the eyes and tell her that her life is about to get REALLY great now. (I make it a bit scary so she listens),” writes Foster-Blake. “It’s true! Life does get better at 30, and it continues to get better. Experience and confidence and self-assuredness finally starts to triumph over the insecurity and confusion of your 20s.”
