I am turning 30, and I drive a minivan, and this does not depress me whatsoever. I could write sonnets about my minivan, and I think I love it more than my husband, who can only open one door at a time for me. The van can open two doors and pop the trunk with the click of a button. Plus the van actually shielded me from my newest and deepest fear, deranged attacking ostriches with red eyes at the nearby safari park, and my husband didn’t do ANYTHING except sit there and laugh. So that’s it, he’s the worst, and the van is the best.

As for 30, it gets a bad rep, and I feel sorry for it. I can hear high school me talking about a girl who was dating someone older (like 22, gasp), and we were all, “EW, he’s like THIRTY,” saying the word with the same disgust one usually only reserves for words like “wart cream” and “Caillou.”

But the truth is that 30 is good, and the 30-year-old-minivan-driver life is a good life. It’s a life in which cracker crumbs will eternally fuse themselves into the carpet, which adds character, and it’s a life that screams, “Yes I DO ignore my eyebrows completely, and I can’t scrounge up an ounce of insecurity about it.” Thirty makes the worrying-about-what-people-think clouds part and the sun shine, and I realize I’ve been battling my inner loser my whole life, and finally I was like, “Come here, you adorable loser, I just love you.”

So now I bear-hug loser Caroline all day every day, and we are having so much fun together. It was lame of me to try to hide her away for three decades because she brings a lot to the table, particularly an affection for yard gnomes and a very fiery monologue she’s prepared in case she is ever asked her opinion of polygamist Kody Brown’s hair. (Spoiler: The deep hatred prevents her from sleeping well.)

Obviously Caroline’s most beneficial skill she has come to completely embrace is her (my) hand-like feet. It’s my most enviable mothering quality by a long shot. Feeding baby while shrieking toddler needs to get in the bathroom? Open door with toes. Paci on the ground and grumpy giant baby making quad-burning squat feel less-than-desirable? Pick up paci with toes. And don’t worry, I WASH IT after that because I’m not a monster, unless I don’t have time and a tiny person is screaming at me, in which case, LOOK AWAY.

But don’t worry, my thirty-year-old life is not all glamour! A month ago our then 11-month-old son ate a dead spider. He just crunched it up with his little gums and swallowed and there wasn’t a thing my hands or hand-feet could do. “At least it was dead,” people say, but this is little consolation. Because HE ATE A SPIDER. “Good protein,” other people say, and this is also little consolation because again, HE ATE A SPIDER. And also, it's not like his protein needs are so extreme that we must resort to spiders. He’s a baby, not a Crossfit-er, although I will say that his fat rolls are formed into perfect little biceps, which is why he wears a lot of tank tops when he eats spiders.

So if you see me cruising around town in a slick ostrich-proof black van, ignoring my eyebrows, bumpin’ my favorite audio book, tossing Goldfish into the backseat to Spider Eater and his sister Dog Feed Eater, and driving with my hand-feet (just kidding, I don’t do that), don’t pity me for my stereotypical suburbanite ways. Just say, “Hey girl, how do you feel about polygamist Kody Brown’s hair?” And I will tell you: THE DEEP HATRED HAS REVEALED TO ME THE PROFOUND DEPRAVITY OF MY OWN SOUL!!!!!!!!

In conclusion, thirty is awesome. Peace and blessings.