Being 30 had mega perks. I still felt like I was “fresh outta my twenties” and just starting a new decade. Being 31 is…well…it’s real, son. I’m officially in it. Not just a toe in the water but the whole damn foot.

So what’s it like? I’m a bit more unapologetically, unabashedly me and that feels pretty awesome. I noticed even on my brithday that I didn’t sweat the small stuff. For those who know me, you know this is pretty big. I didn’t get a manicure before my birthday and that was okay. I didn’t stress about the many friends out of town on a beautiful Saturday in March (I mean can you blame them?!). I did manage to get my hair cut (okay, still very important), my eyebrows were freshly groomed (now concealed by said haircut) and I had a massage and a facial booked within two weeks of the big day. Crushing it.

Real talk, 31 has been filled with a sassy series of sorry-not-sorries. Silk shirts and satin pothos plants. Impromptu girls’ getways and big travel plans for the remainder of the year and even into 2019. I’m fortunate enough to love my job and the people I get to be surrounded by every single day. I love the spaces I’ve created for myself – my home, the products and pieces I fill it with and the perfumes I’ve claimed as “my scent”. I’m that woman now who has added witch hazel toner to her nighttime ritual, flosses because it’s important and has gone to get more mani/pedi’s in the last two years than in my whole life. This luxury once reserved for homecomings and holdays is now a perfectly groomed excuse to catch up with my girlfriends, talk too loudy over calous-scrubbing and to truly prioritize self-care.

Thurdays have been dubbed face-mask-day and while the clay-hardens it serves as prime opportunity to water my plants. Yes, that’s plural. I now am the proud mother of five potted pretties throughout my domicile and they all have names. I also started following a stranger on Instagram for the sole reason that his/her IG handle is @soiledplanties. Officially my new best friend.

I’m phasing out tired and worn Gap basics (nothing wrong with Gap until I realized I’ve had this shirt for a about as long as it took me to floss on a regular basis – so forever), realizing I’m long overdue to invest in some new pillows and will most likely buy new pots for my planted friends in the next couple weeks. I’m also heading to the great Pacific Northwest to spend QT with two of my most wonderful ladies. You also know you’re 31 when you talk about a trip to take together and everyone books separate flights immediately. No time for ho-humming and youc an forget let’s-all-coordinate-every-waking-moment. We’re grown-ass-adults now and we do what we want. Okay maybe not so brash but seirously – this just works.

In our 30s (the real kind not the teetering-on-the-edge-30), we make shit happen. We look out for ourselves and we hone in on the things that matter and make no excuses for them. We rethink our posessions and what we truly want among us, what makes us happy, who makes us happy and we chat about these things over $5 coffee because we wanted that overprice treat and we deserve it. We find out more and more what it’s like to live a little bit more in love with ourselves.

This decade with a little less fear and a lot more fire, is starting to look real fierce…as fierce as the lone grey hair over my right temple.