Thirty and Surety

Turning thirty, finding career clarity, and brainstorming future projects

For years now, I’ve looked forward to my thirties as the time by which, maybe, I’d finally “know what I want to be when I grow up.” I’d heard from enough trusted sources to believe - the twenties are overrated. Yeah, you’re young; but you’re confused, often directionless, and usually without the cash or PTO to do anything really “fun.”

I’ve been 30 for just over 2 months, and whether by divine order - or maybe it’s become a self-fulfilling prophecy - I do feel like I finally have a sense of myself. Like I have really started to feel everything *click* into place around the murky confusion that has surrounded my career path. That daunting task of trying to find where in this big, crazy world my interests and talents would fit.

These Truths

Along the way, I’ve come to believe in a few truths about myself and the world:

1. I have always wound up being the one who’s responses to the basic “What do you do?” or “What did you study?” questions were never simple. Mine were the answers that started with a “Well…” Mine always demanded further explanation.

2. Once a person knows what they should do, the trick is simply to not give up. If you’ve really got it, if you know in your bones what you were put on this earth to do - just keep going after it. Don’t let any rejection, any slowness, any amount of hard work stand in your way. Go through it all with an unshakable faith that this is what you were meant for and you will get there eventually.

After years of struggling to find my footing or my focus in the chaos of the 2020s, or simply being distracted and too busy with the demands of daily life - finding and holding onto the job that pays the bills for now - I’ve finally found the thing that feels right. The thing that not only exists in the real world, but is something I am capable of and can work my way towards being ‘qualified’ for. It may still be a “Well…” sort of thing. And, furthermore, it’s more a range of roles (or a feeling and a sense of what rooms I want to be in, regardless of exactly what title my nameplate may have).

Now that I have a more clear focus on what is in my sights, I find myself calcifying my sense of “who I want to be and what I want to do.” To be prepared to “tell the story” as I go forward networking and “promoting myself” to the people who will help me get there, professionally. And, I figured there’s no harm in doing some of that workshopping “out loud” on my Substack.

The Vision

I want to be a professor who writes. A journalist who teaches. An interviewer who is just as fascinated by the science as she is by the human being explaining it.

I want Drew Barrymore’s seat, Jill Lepore’s pen, and Bill Nye or Steve Irwin’s enthusiasm and skill with education.

I want to walk into rooms with politicians, educators, scientists, and journalists and be the person that can speak to all of them with ease. To be the person that connects the dots. Who attends a conference related to some heavy scientific or policy-related matters; and then walks out of it ready to distill the information for a lay audience. To explain to the public, the patient, or the voter how it all affects them. The latest scientific discovery won’t change their world, but it may change their interactions at the doctor’s office. The new bill that just got passed might not substantiate into anything dramatic overnight, but it will affect how their governors or even mayors are able to show up and do their jobs.

I may even want to be the person that speaks to the scientists and politicians. Advising them of what the public is concerned with and what would actually affect their lives the most.

Ideas for Future Projects

A few dreams I’ve had as far as potential projects to pursue down the line:

1. A “Kitchen Table/Front Porch” series of interviews where I travel the country (mostly small towns and a lot of middle America) and just talk to people.

   1. Talk to anyone and everyone, not about “politics” or “the issues,” but about what they care about and their lived reality. Not about “the issue of abortion” but: what they worry about with their kids, what their experience was like with pregnancy and labor, and how their faith and religion play a hand in their own everyday decisions. Not about “the second amendment,” but about whether they grew up with firearms, how they feel about them in action movies vs next door to them, the respect they have for various weapons and equipment, their thoughts on classes like Driver’s Ed and Sex Ed and the realistic approach to teaching people how to navigate something we almost all come into contact with.

   2. Not only do I see this series as being informative to other Americans across the country from each other, but even to elites and politicians that (overwhelmingly) spend their time on the coasts and/or in big cities. Who, increasingly, seem so out of touch with how regular, rural Americans think. I want to create a space where we can see how similar our values and concerns really are if we shrug off the baggage and toxicity of national politics and “culture war” buzz words.

2. Female Athletes Balancing Life and Motherhood, or a sort of “Chicken Soup for the Female Athlete”

   1. A series of interviews with everyday women who workout regularly and consider themselves athletes, while balancing the unique pressures of femininity, women’s domestic labor, and even motherhood with their exercise routine. Their journey and struggles, the battle with guilt and feelings of “selfishness” and the inner voice or (real or imagined) pressures to look a certain way, do certain things, or “show up” perfectly across all spaces. The way we must become okay with showing up imperfectly in every space we deem worth our time; whether its career, home life, or the gym. How we carve out strength, physically and psychologically, amid the pressures.

Flashes of Ten Years From Now

My husband talks about visualizing. The kids talk about “manifesting.”

One vision I got - years down the line of pursuing this career of interdisciplinary journalism, education, and studying the intersection of science, culture, and policy - is of me interviewing people affected by legislation or some development and being able to speak to them directly, whether they are Deaf and ASL users, Spanish-speakers, or English-speakers. Hearing their stories first-hand. Weaving those raw, unfiltered viewpoints into whatever I’m writing.

That is the career I want.

The work I’m building my life toward.

The thing I can finally name, or at least describe, now that I’m thirty and thriving.