You Know You're In Your Thirties When... (24 Tell-Tale Signs)

Had I known the changes that would come, I might have avoided some of them. At the very least, I would have known I wasn’t falling apart. I wasn’t dying and didn’t need to freak out about it. It wasn’t me. I was just in my thirties.

1. You Know You're In Your Thirties When... (24 Tell-Tale Signs)

My thirties have been full of … surprises.

Lots of them.

One day as I applied anti-aging wrinkle cream and removed a pesky chin hair, I realized no one told me these changes would happen.

Had I known, I might have avoided some of them. At the very least, I would have known I wasn't falling apart. I wasn't dying and didn't need to freak out about it.

It wasn't me. I was just in my thirties.

You Know You're In Your Thirties When...

1. You begin squinting at menus, road signs, and computer screens. (When did everyone start writing in small font?)

2. Finally, you're one of the people who circle the rack of reading glasses, looking for a pair that doesn't make you look like a librarian. After trying on every pair on the rack, you decide looking like a librarian isn't the worst thing in the world.

3. You eat less than you've ever eaten in your life, but the inches still add themselves to your waist. It happens against your will, without your permission, and you finally empathize with people who get wider as they age.

4. A sore throat is not just a sore throat anymore, but a possible warning sign of a serious illness. Every twitch, ache, and sleepless night confirms that cancer, Alzheimer's, and heart disease are fast approaching. Death is coming for you, and it might come tomorrow.

5. Career success is not as important as who will be there for you when you're old and senile. You start praying that if you ever need a personal care nurse that they will have heroic amounts of compassion and patience.

6. Wrinkles appear - and not just laugh lines and crow's feet either. You can convince yourself those are acceptable – attractive even. It's the wrinkles on your neck and hands that are concerning. And you definitely try to ignore the way the skin on your arms and hands is starting to look like poultry.

7. Then there's that pesky, embarrassing facial hair. At first it catches you by surprise one day when you graze your chin with your hand and feel the half-inch long chin hair that's probably gleaming in the sun.

Of course it happens when you're in public, far away from any razor or tweezer. You ride out the day with your fist on your chin, hoping you come across as deeply thoughtful. From then on, you shave. Or pluck. Admit it. And please, for everyone's sake, pluck often.

8. You begin to collect five-stage skin care products that have words like 'anti-aging' and 'reduces wrinkles' on them. Suddenly having skin requires multiple stages and hundreds of dollars and you can't help but notice that everyone still has wrinkles. You feel a bit suckered, but use the creams anyway. Maybe you'll be the lucky one.

9. Years of tea and coffee drinking are beginning to show. You start spending over five dollars per tube of whitening toothpaste. You also invest in tooth whitening tools and gels. After decades of avoidance, you even floss once in a while. Maybe, just maybe, you can still avoid getting dentures when you're sixty.

10. You've become invisible. People under the age of twenty five don't notice you anymore. Clerks don't make eye contact like they used to, and you don't get flirty looks from a stranger in the produce section anymore. You take this as license to venture out occasionally in bedhead or without makeup. No one notices.

11. Your parents, aunts, and uncles are only in their fifties, and already struggle with osteoarthritis, fibromyalgia, cancer, and strokes. You try not to think about what your fifties will be like, and start eating more spinach.

12. On a mission to stave off illness (or at least shave off a few pounds), you begin eating more vegetables. And drinking smoothies. You also make sure to take probiotics and vitamins. This lasts for months with minimal results.

13. It becomes necessary to work out like you're preparing for an Iron Man competition just to maintain your current level of flab. You wonder why life is so unfair.

14. You've tried at least three weight loss programs or products to no avail. You feel like you're being duped, but don't know what else to do, so keep searching for the one that will work for you.

15. You notice that most of your high school classmates look older and wider and wrinklier too. Then you suddenly wonder what they see when they look at you, and resolve to do an extra work out that week.

16. You wrestle with the decision to attend or avoid the twenty-year high school reunion. And, if you're honest, you'll admit that while deciding, you calculate how many weeks it would take to get in shape, and rate the awesomeness of your life and how it might compare to your old peers. Welcome back to high school.

17. When you don't work out or eat well for a week or two, and the pounds add themselves relentlessly to your midsection.

18. After a game of bowling you limp and hurt for two days.

19. You begin to discuss adding on to the house so that aging family members can live with you.

20. You start having conversations about elderly parents and whether nursing homes are really the best option.

21. You attend more funerals than ever before.

22. Young parents who carry around babies look like babies themselves.

23. Between the non-existent savings account and the increasing cost of living, you wonder if your retirement years will involve living in a box in an alley somewhere.

24. You fear the changes that await you in your forties and fifties.

What evidences would YOU add to the list?