One of these days I may tire of posting photos of myself in front of the ocean

But today is not that day.

I guess I just still can't believe that I live here and that my Memorial Day weekend could be spent in Malibu and not, say, the Jersey shore. And that I could wake up to the sound of waves crashing against the shore, and not someone's snoring from the bottom bunk. The ease of driving up the PCH versus the planes, trains, and automobile schlep it used to take just to leave the city. None of it has gotten old. In fact, things just keep getting better.

Although, hello, I am getting old! My birthday is in five days! And, far from the anxiety-ridden basket case I was last year at this time, I am actually so excited! I mean, I'm not looking forward to seeing "31" next to my MySpace profile, but I can deal. Partly because I have something really fun planned for the big day, but more so because I really feel like I have just had the one of the best years of my life.

Looking back, that 30th birthday was a turning point for me. Aside from the mental anguish of leaving my 20's and entering an era that I thought surely would confirm me a spinster for life, I was also coming off a year in which I had to try extremely hard at EVERYTHING. Moving to LA, as fun as it was, was not easy. Making friends, while not difficult for me, per se, was a process of trial and error. Girls I thought I would be close with, I turned out never to see, while other people that I clicked with, I soon realized weren't really my type. My entire first year here I felt like I was "auditioning" friends, or auditioning for friends, and it was more exhausting than dating because I took rejections more personally.

And then there was dating. I dated a guy for a while my first year here, and we had just started to rekindle our romance before my birthday. I knew at the time, though, that it wasn't going anywhere, and the whole thing stressed me out so much, because I felt like the relationship stood for something bigger: did I want to start 30 making the same bad decisions I had made in my 20's?

Being in a new environment, in general, was just taxing. A new job, a new city, a new culture - when you live in one place for a long time you forget how hard it can be when you don't know the good dry cleaners, the good doctors, or how to parallel park. Just getting in the car everyday was a challenge, or at least whenever I'd have to drive somewhere new, and worry about getting lost or in an accident because I'm too busy trying to read the directions in a six-lane freeway.

But when my birthday rolled around, and everyone showed up and stayed the whole night, it was like something in me shifted. I realized that I had, in fact, made some great friends in LA, that I was among truly awesome peeps. And once I stared my biggest fear in the face - being 30 and single with no prospects - it suddenly didn't seem so bad. I was a long way from being the scary cat lady. My outlook on things changed. The guy and I stopped dating, and became friends. Work picked up and sent me to New York for half the summer, which let me do my job in the environment with which I am most familiar. I just remember waking up the morning after my 30th birthday party feeling satisfied in a way I hadn't remembered feeling in a long time.

So, while I'm not absolutely dying to turn 31 on Saturday, a lot of that is only because I'm sad to say goodbye to 30.