Thirty years ago today, I was being squeezed out of my mother’s vagina. Well, actually I was being ripped out of her stomach via emergency C-section. Hence, I woke up this morning the big 3-0.

And I just discovered some new wrinkles under my eyes. Happy Birthday to me.

I don’t really mind exiting my 20s, or physically aging even — what I do mind are the people who put pressure on me to act my age.

“You’re turning 30! You going to get married or become an old maid?” are the birthday sentiments I seem to be getting.

For some reason, the age of 30 is viewed as some sort of relationship deadline … especially in the South where I’m like an endangered single species attending church every weekend — to attend weddings, that is. What is the rush to the altar at 30? Our eggs do not have the shelf-life of dairy… the expiration date extends beyond 30 years. Hell, my mom had me when she was 40 … 30 years ago, before fertility was a scientific experiment.

Turning 30 is such a big deal, apparently it's newsworthy and warrants the cover of the Living Section in the Charlotte Observer: Breaking News: I'm 30 and still single. Even Kim Kardashian did a feature in People Magazine about how she thought she’d be married with kids before 30. But life doesn’t always work out as planned does it, Kim. I figure I’ll just play it by ear … life that is.

Maybe I am missing a few screws, but there is no clock ticking (or eggs rotting) in my body. I’m not going to put the settling in settling down just because I am a few years short of cougar status.

Now that I’ve conquered all my adolescent fears, I’ll do it better in my next 30 years … wait, now I’m just singing a Tim McGraw song. Well, I’m going to enter this new decade with the intelligence and worldliness of a woman who has 30 years of life experiment. The 20s were just practice and the wrinkles on my face are from my laugh lines. They are just proof that I smiled a lot in my first 30 years.

So to me it’s not the dirty 30; it’s the flirty 30. And that means it's merely an excuse to throw a big party.