Yup, you read that right. I’m T H I R T Y. Yikes but also this is the first birthday that I didn’t cry haha. I actually felt ready to turn 30. I’m proud of the growth I’ve made over the last couple years.
Yes, I might not be where typical 30 year olds are in life. I don’t have a stable job, I don’t own a house, I don’t have children. And you know what, I think this is the first birthday that I didn’t feel the pressures of those “expectations” because I’m happy with who I am on the inside.
It’s cheesy but it’s true. I’ve definitely put too much pressure on myself over the years, and I’ve finally learnt that I don’t need to fit a certain societal mold to be happy. Anywayyyy, sappiness be gone!
Jerome and I chatted about going to Hawaii for my 30th, but didn’t actually make any plans for it to happen. Long story short, I was like screw it I wanna go so I’m paying. I booked the tickets less than 2 weeks before the departure date.
Our most spontaneous trip turned into one of our most favourite trips.
(So sorry for the long intro, but I thought I’d just say that this post is only about my actual birthday day in Hawaii.)
We started the day off with a little cafe breakfast. I had the vegan pancakes and Jerome had a vegan blt. It honestly wasn’t the best meal, and I was a bit bummed, but it filled our stomachs. Oh, and I got a free matcha latte haha.
We spent my birthday kayaking and climbing to the top of Chinaman’s Hat. It was a lot of fun but oh so scary. So, we rented our kayak from Two Good Kayaks and the man helping us was on the older side. Maybe like 70ish? And he was like, “oh man if you’re kayaking, you gotta go to Chinaman’s Hat and hike to the top. It’s such a nice hike and he view is super nice.” We were like “okay cool we’re down let’s do it.” We rented our tandem kayak, threw it on the roof of our rental Jeep (securely and safely) and made it to the beach feeling super stoked.
The kayak ride(?) was nice and peaceful other than trying to get past a couple small waves. We again threw our kayak securely and safely on some higher land on the island, and started our hike. It wasn’t very long into the hike that we were like, “wait what?” I’m sure there’s people out there thinking I’m just being whatever I’m not being, but this was definitely not just a hike. We had to climb. I wish I had more pictures to share so you can get an idea of what I mean by climb, but we were legit climbing and it was scary.
There was one point where you had to either use a rope that was attached to something 10 feet above you or you had to climb up a super thin winding path not really a path only to be met with a boulder you had climb over. I remember thinking multiple times, “am I going to die on my 30th birthday?”
When we finally made it to the top, we were super sweaty, tired and dirty. We had a little sit down and drank some water before we walked around the top. It was really scary thinking you could just step wrong and fall off the island. The view from the top was beautiful, and it was nice to be able to appreciate the climb we just did.
We didn’t really stay at the top for too too long because we were so anxious about having to climb back down. Climbing down was just as scary as climbing up. It didn’t help that we had our cameras with us and had to concentrate to not smash them on the rocks. We thought about kayaking around the whole island, but someone at the top with us said there were a lot of sharks behind it, so we thought it’d probably be best to avoid it.
After making it back to the main island, we were ravenous and I requested to have some açai bowls at Nalu Health Bar. We wanted to kayak down a river that the man also suggested to us, but it started to rain and it got pretty windy and cold so we called it quits.
We didn’t get up to too much else to be honest. We did a bit of driving around, had dinner at a sushi restaurant, and caught an early night because we were planning for a big thing the next morning. We sipped on some gifted champagne from the hotel and called it a night.
It was a lovely birthday.
Having a birthday in March means it’s always been cold and wintery, so it was a m a z i n g to be actually able to have a sunny beachy warm birthday celebration. I totally wanna do it again next year.
I’m thankful for being another year older and for the life that I have.
I never would have thought that I’d be okay with being 30, but here I am!
☼ Melissa
In case you were wondering, we were gone from March 4th to 11th. There weren’t many Covid cases in Hawaii, and we literally JUST missed lockdown/quarantine by a couple days. We wore masks on the flights and throughout the airports and we washed our hand a lot and often. We’re very careful, trust me!