There is hope after 30

I am trying to begin this blog but keep getting distracted by the blinging ring on my left hand. What I see on one of the fingers pressing the keys on this laptop is not just a material item, it is a symbol to me that, thank God, there is hope after 30.
Past blogs have made it obvious that I was becoming scared more than impatient that perhaps marriage would not be for me again. People thought I was crazy to think that I even doubted my boyfriend, fearful that he would never propose because he wasn't too sure of me. But experience teaches you fear more than it does hope, I feel, and so I looked at the past to say, I won't believe it until it happens. I was not going to fall victim to taking literally a man's every word, no matter how honest, kind, Christian, and heartfelt he sounded.
I believed anything could happen. Another woman might come his way. A career change. An illness. As morbid as this sounds, there could have been death.
One can say it is the same when engaged, that nothing is sealed until the vows are spoken. True, but what I just needed to know, was that this man truly, truly loves me and wants only to ever be with me. I needed to believe that I was worthy of this kind of love.
After age 30, it is easy to doubt a future of love, marriage and family. Gone are the college days when it is so easy to meet those of the opposite sex. Gone are the early career days when you are out and about networking, socializing, partying. As a woman, your body starts changing and unless you want to work out 7 days a week, starve yourself, get botox, and plastic surgery, you can forget ever looking as youthful as you once did.
However, something else does happen when you are 30. You start finding yourself, you actually grow into your body. You become empowered, stronger, sexier, and ultimately more beautiful. Yet, younger men want you for sex; older men don't want you at all because they feel threatened that you're too smart for their games. Something was said along these lines in UP IN THE AIR by Vera Farmiga's character, but I can't quote it exactly, nor can I find it anywhere online. Jason Reitman says it better than I do in his script. But you get the idea.
And so goes the reason why single or divorced women in their 30's start to fret. Where can they find a decent man who hasn't been used and abused himself from divorce? Where can they find a man who is not so set in his ways? Are they going to be able to have children by age 40? What if a woman is so married to her career that no man would want to compete with that, especially if he's dreamed up a stay-at-home wife?
But I can breathe again. I made the ship before it set sail. I have joined the club, a club, whatever club that is, I don't care, but I have a man who loves me and wants to spend the rest of his life with me. I don't know what my body might do, but I have hope that I can now realistically plan to have a family.
The key word, HOPE. I can HOPE for a bright future with the man I found true love with, true love for the first time, past the age of 30.
Yes, women, there is hope after 30.