I'm young enough to know the right car to buy yet grown enough not to put rims on it.

I'm supposed to have freaked out about turning 30. I didn't. Still, on my birthday, as everyone wished me well, I found myself asserting all too often how great I felt about getting older. Doth I protest too much?

Maybe. But not because I was trying to convince myself. I think it was because I couldn't shake this feeling that nobody was going to believe me. If I had a husband and a baby--those certain marks tradition says I should have hit by now--it might be more possible to imagine I could embrace my age.

The truth is, though, I'm actually quite thankful I got to live the entirety of my 20s on my own terms. I made a lot of mistakes in my 20s. And they were really fun. I embraced irresponsibility to its fullest, and I didn't cut it one day short. I loved being 22, but it's not something that's worth a second go-round.

What's strange, if anything, about turning 30 is that it happens at all. Even five years ago it seems ridiculously far off. Yes, youth fades, but it's not so regrettable if you're doing it right. Besides, Jay-Z told me 30's the new 20 anyway.

The Golden Bullet

The culture of overachievement at my high school both disgusted and infected me. My decision to attend USC garnered a B reaction from my teachers and classmates; not a respectable Ivy League A, but better than a barely passing University of [Insert Midwest State] C. The school typically sends as many graduating seniors to USC as it does to the local University of Hawaii campus, which ranks as the equivalent of a D.

In undergrad, I told my parents I wanted to be a college professor. It validated my choice of major (first Comparative Lit, then English) for my father. My brother Keola also majored in English. He turned down business school at Oxford and became a radio DJ instead. Almost 10 years later, he still DJs, and he still loves it.

When it became clear that I would not follow some prestigious career path, I wondered how my dad would react to the fact that I would have a B job after attending a B school. My oldest brother, Kalama, received dual degrees in Law and Public Policy from Harvard and UC Berkeley's Boalt Hall. He served as the editor of the Law Review in his last year of school and secured a six-figure job at some high-profile New York firm a solid month before graduation. And he's set to make partner at his current firm next year.

Clearly, Kalama is the golden child, far from perfect but aptly filling the mold that our father so carefully designed. A couple years ago, I realized that this isn't what Kalama wanted. He does it, but like the rest of the martyrs in our family, he took a bullet for his siblings. He became what our dad wanted so Keola and I wouldn't have to. I call it the golden bullet. He calls it paying the bills. I wonder if the label makes a difference.

The Hustle To Tutor

I wish I were a doctor or a lawyer for my mother.

After my sister died, my mother just wanted me to be happy.

I was writing and performing my own material in New York City and was happy, but was poor. Strippers would tell me how much they made in a night, but I just didn’t think I could do the hustle. When I found out prostitutes in Nevada make less than tenure teachers, I was glad I chose teaching as my day job over stripping in my twenties.

But now I’m not so sure. I watched the documentary, Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer, and realized I’d like to be making $4,000 a client.

Instead, I am hustling to get my students to come to tutoring which is F-R-E-E at our school, but the kids don’t want to stay the hour after school. I’ve been really talking it up lately. Telling them how much I’d be making if I were in the private industry—that those rich parents dole out the dough when it comes to SAT prep.

I think there might be a parallel in my teaching life and my dating life…I can’t give it away for F-R-E-E. Ha, ha. That could get me fired nowadays.

So could saying to a pregnant teen that it’s not too late for an abortion. I said it in my joking manner, not knowing how to react to her teen pregnancy. Yes, I know that is not an option with those Catholics. I told her, “My mom said I’d be taken to the clinic if I got pregnant at your age.” You can’t say those things aloud! “Inappropriate as a teacher” according to another teacher, an administrator and our union rep. Wow. I didn’t know I was in such a conservative environment which would rather have women go back to sticking a hanger up their cooch as opposed to having options for legal abortion.

I watched The Stoning of Soraya M about this woman who is falsely accused of adultery and stoned to death by her husband, her sons, and her father. It really made me appreciate my financial independence. I kept thinking, “Why didn’t this woman just divorce him?” and then realized that was a very white, American view point to have and maybe I missed the point of just how repressed women are in the world and what a misogynistic society we live in.

At tutoring today, my student showed up who is a cross dresser. I love him. I told him how I saw Dan Savage at the LA Festival of Books and told him he needs to watch the “It Gets Better” project when he got home because he had never heard of it. He and his friend had certainly heard of homophobia, but misogyny was a new systematic concept for them, which I was happy to share. I thanked them at the end of the session. Told them getting students at tutoring was a real hustle, but they made it worth it.

So maybe this hustle is a little more meaningful at the end of a session than others.

But all my friends back home are lawyers

Well that's not true. Some of them are doctors too. And according to Facebook, all of them are married or engaged. Their weddings are big, showy affairs in massive churches, to which everyone from my high school gets invited. Aren't people supposed to get less attractive as they get older? Apparently not in Texas. The brides are beautiful. The bridesmaids are beautiful. Everyone is beautiful. And extraordinarily gainfully employed.

It's not that I want any of this, really. I love my boyfriend and our apartment and the time I have to write. It's just...the other day, my uncle introduced me to a friend of his like this: "She's studying writing, but she's way beyond all that. You know, she went to Brown," and I'm still trying to figure out what he meant. At my cousin's bridal shower a few weeks ago, surrounded by girls with blow-dried hair and Columbia law degrees, asked to introduce myself and talk about what I do, I found myself stricken with shyness and completely at a loss. I'm not sure what it's going to take to get beyond all this. A book deal? A staff writer job? Some other impossible token I can wave around to prove to people that I actually do something? Up until about a year ago, I kept an LSAT book in my closet, just in case. I moved to a new place a few weeks ago, and I left it behind. It's time to move beyond that option, I think. I just wish I knew what I was moving towards.