This is 30. My closest friends and I have hit the big 3-0, which means that we should be whole functioning adults, if our grandparents are to be believed.

Being thirty feels vastly different from what most of my peers and I thought it would as teenagers. In fact, we still feel, and sometimes act, like teenagers. Apologies to all the high school teachers we thought were in entirely over their heads, we just didn’t know.

We mostly pass as effective grownups during the daytime, meeting and exceeding the expectations of our employers while also messaging the group chat to determine who is ‘completely over today’ at 10:30AM.

Millennials, those people the Pew Research Center states were born

between 1981 and 1996, are the first generation to come of age during the new

millennium. They would have grown up in and been part of the technological age

that today forms such an important part of our lives.

Interestingly, other information reviewed from studies by the Pew

Research Center on American millennials, shows many parallels between the experiences

my peers and I face.

We are better educated, better employed, slower to start our own households, and by extension families because our priorities largely just aren’t the same. Sharing experiences with friends is important to us. We value making memories over things and treasure these moments which can be shared on the ‘Gram. We either want to travel, are travelling or saving to travel. It’s the dream of our predecessors except millennials are not waiting on early retirement to live it.

At 30, I’m considered educated, experienced and accomplished; on the way to great success. However, expectations and social media tell me that I have missed a couple milestones, dropped some easy catches and fallen behind on the growth curve. I work as part of a team, give advice and guidance daily, and then go home to enjoy my favourite meal of nuggets and iced tea.

Apparently, this is 30. What a time to be alive!