On my 29th birthday, I felt older than my friends who were already 30

“I felt way younger at 30 than I did at 29. At 29, you’re the oldest of the pack. When you turn 30, you get a clean slate.”

It’s Sunday morning, and a friend’s pep talk is ringing in my ears. I’ve woken up in a hotel bed in Melbourne: disorientated, hungover and half-dressed – yesterday’s salon-fresh hair now a matted mess. My eyes are puffy, and mascara clings to my skin in cheap, coagulated streaks.

I have always been a birthday person, especially during my 20s. But today, my 29th birthday, feels different – like there’s a creeping alarm, and it’s honking as loudly as the street traffic several storeys below.

“Twenty-nine is old, 30 is young,” she said. “I just can’t explain it.”

I think what my friend means by that is that 29 feels a bit like the final year of school – there’s suddenly more at stake. Thirty, by contrast, oddly resembles our first year of university, or whatever comes next: a chance to try on different versions of ourselves, wipe the slate clean and embrace a little whimsy.

We put so much pressure on getting everything ticked off by 30, from getting a promotion to Botox, that we focus on the countdown more than the moment. And it doesn’t help that our sense of ageing and reaching milestones is often mediated through our phone screens.

We’re grieving the easy confidence and endless possibilities of our 20s, while recoiling at the prospect of a new decade. If 30 is the marker, 29 feels like limbo — a waiting room surrounded by other 20-somethings, all waiting to be called. Which is when comparison culture creeps in.

I’m not sure what the “life doctor” would have to say about my 20s once I get in the room.

It’s OK, sweetie, you’ve got time to sort things out. Speaking of time, don’t panic about your eggs – yet – you’ve got a few years to find a man. Just think! You’ve done so much already.

Which is more or less the same smug reassurance I received after explaining “I’m still figuring it out” to those who seemingly have things figured out – and simply can’t place me.

That, or I’m firmly in the “other” box when it comes to the generic markers of success: Relationship. Job title. House.

“It seems to me that the years between 18 and 28 are the hardest, psychologically,” actor Helen Mirren once wrote. “It’s then you realise this is make or break, you no longer have the excuse of youth, and it is time to become an adult – but you are not ready.”

That tension – expectation without readiness – is what makes the transition so taxing and bruising. We’re asked to decide, commit and deliver while still working out who we are, and what we