{This seems like the type of photo that would be right for the “30 Under 30” list I never made. Photo cred: My unpaid husband/indentured servant Tony.}

The Forbes 30 Under 30 list came out recently, and it hit me like a ton of bricks: I’m turning 30 in less than two months, and the likelihood of making any of those exceedingly popular “under 30” lists is dwindling. Fast. Given the fact that I have trouble working my iPhone and television, I never really expected to create an app or launch a company that would land me on the Forbes list. But I thought my constant, desperate chase for attention would eventually snag me a spot as the wunderkind who starred in the TV show she also wrote. These lists appear in Hollywood all the time, too, and I remember when I was 19 and head over heels in love with my first screenwriting class, thinking it was inevitable that I’d eventually end up on one of them. After all, I had 11 years and a Rainman-like focus when it came to writing. And yet, here I am. It’s been nearly 11 years, and I’ve written 11 scripts. Some I’m glad haven’t seen the light of day, and others I’m heartbroken (and still have hope that maybe one day they will). But, none of them are landing me on a “30 Under 30” list and, as ridiculous as this sounds, that kind of bums me out. #WHITEPEOPLEPROBLEMS, amiright??

For real, though. I want to talk about this. Why is 30 the cut off, anyway? Is the subtext that if you accomplish something spectacular and noteworthy before 30, it’s special and to be applauded? But if you achieve it after 30, it’s just normal and to be expected? What if you still don’t achieve it after 30? Then are you officially a failure? This is the stuff of my nightmares. I CAN’T HANDLE THIS KIND OF PRESSURE.

In the mundane everyday-ness of life, I love lists. Making lists and organizing what I need to do quells my anxiety, even if I make so many lists my list-making becomes a form of procrastination in itself, and becomes so detailed I can’t remember what’s on what list or what I actually need to do, and have to start a new list that cross-references the other lists… But in the career sector of life, lists stress me out. They are total clickbait, and anytime I see them I scroll through immediately to see who I know, who has figured out what I haven’t. Not healthy. I remember one of my friends once made a list of his 10 funniest friends and posted it to Facebook, and I was so upset to have not made this silly, arbitrary list, I cried. From Forbes to Facebook, it’s a little bit like high school, formally separating the “cool kids” from the rest of us. Kryptonite for a Type-A people pleaser with an unhealthy obsession with being liked.

I don’t know what I expected when I was 19, really; that landing on one of these lists would guarantee job security or, even more elusive, happiness? The sole gateway to creating my own little Shonda Rhimes-like empire of lady-centric comedy? I’m fairly rigid and once I decide on something, it’s hard for me to deviate from it. When I was three, that constituted wearing the same pink dress every day for a year. As a 20-something, that constituted obsessively chasing a very specific, singular goal. When people tell me, “Sometimes the thing you want not working out out is a blessing in disguise, a door opening for something better,” I see it as a challenge to keep beating that first goddamn door down until that motherf*cker finally opens.

As I get older, though, I’m trying really hard to learn to let go and let life happen. That’s not to be melodramatic; I’m in no way giving up on my dreams. Instead, I’m trying to open up my view of what “success” is. For a long time, I didn’t want to get married until “I made it.” But then Tony finally asked me what that meant, what it would take for me to feel like I’d “made it,” and I honestly didn’t know. Making it on a “30 Under 30” list? Making it onto a TV show? Making it onto Deadline with a script sale? But then what? I’ve chosen a career where everyone is always hustling for the next thing and there are no guarantees. And so I went to therapy, and my therapist asked me, What about the famous celebrities who very obviously had “made it,” but never had a successful marriage or kids, perhaps at the expense of their career? And I realized I wanted those things as much as I wanted a career. But I’ll save the “Can women really have it all?” question for another blog when Dry January is over, because just thinking about that will require a bottle of Cabernet (and probably some Xanax).

I may not be starring on a TV show, but I have a commercial running right now. I haven’t sold a spec script for a million dollars, but I’m writing every day and finding new outlets to let my voice be heard that never would have occurred to my 19-year-old self. This blog started as a fun place to share the mad hilarity of planning my wedding, but also as a safe haven where I could publish my writing every day instead of waiting on the Powers That Be in Hollywood to decide I’m worthy. Deciding to get married before I “made it” (whatever that means) was the best decision I’ve ever made, because I’m sharing my life with someone who makes me happy every day, even on the days that everything else makes me sad. And even if I never made it on a “30 Under 30” list, or my friend’s Facebook list, I made it on Tony’s list as the funniest person under 30 that he knows, who he believes in the most. And I’ll still be #1 on that list after I turn 30. And anyway, that’s the most exclusive list of all, because there is only one spot (we’re not doing a Big Love situation here).

What I realized as I wrote this, too, is that there’s a freedom that comes with being over 30 and “over the hill” in Hollywood terms. Maybe now that I’m not racing against the clock, I’ll live life more like a self-help book and “enjoy the journey.” In fact, as long as I don’t get an audition to play the mother of a 20-year-old the day the day I enter the “30’s” age bracket, I think I’ll be just fine. (And if I do get that audition on my 30th birthday, there’s always wine and Xanax!)