Why does being 29 feel so weird?
By
Ranzel Alday
Every week, PhilSTAR L!fe explores issues and topics from the perspectives of different age groups, encouraging healthy but meaningful conversations on why they matter. This is Generations.
Securing my first million. Owning a house. Getting married with a kid. Traveling the world while managing my own business.
That’s how I’ve envisioned entering my 30s, and I thought I was on the right track. Now that I’m 29, I’m nowhere near those goals. Admittedly, I'm in such a gray area of my life: so far from where I started, but also still so far from where I want to be. At this age, it feels like such a late start for anything—I feel too old for the new habits, sports, and arts that I want to try, but at the same time, I also feel too young to settle for what I have and just deal with it.
I’ve been in the same job for nine years, surviving the pandemic and its aftermath, natural calamities, fuel price surges, and now, AI taking over some jobs and resulting in redundancies and layoffs around the world. When I’m at work, working on presentations, plotting budget forecasts and actuals, and preparing for an event with only a few hours of sleep, I think, “God, I do love this job.” I’m enjoying it. I’m happy with it.
But there are random moments when I start wondering, “Is this even helping me get closer to the goals I’ve always wanted for myself when I enter my 30s?” Have I missed out on the opportunity to job-hop and increase my rate over the years? Have I been left behind by the successes of my previous coworkers-turned-friends because I got stuck with what was familiar and safe?
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While I’ve been busy figuring out my career and where I want to be in life, the people around me have been growing and finding their own ways, too. Some have stayed, some have moved on, and some have become memories I look back on with a little bit of sadness. The friends who got me through the pandemic, spending hours on video calls watching Netflix movies together and counting to three before pressing play so no one got ahead during To All the Boys: Always and Forever. The friends I stayed up with until 5 a.m. to rank up on Mobile Legends or learn new agents on Valorant. The people I first hung out with once quarantine was lifted. The ones who got me hooked on Pop Mart and Sonny Angels.
If I’m being real, I miss those people and how happy I used to be when I was with them. But at this point in my life, I've realized there are indeed people who are meant to be in our lives for specific seasons and reasons. Friendship fallouts don't always need a villain. Sometimes, people just grow apart after serving a purpose in each other's lives.
That's something I've learned to make peace with. Not everything, and not everyone, will look the same as we get older. Some things will change without us noticing, while others will leave us wondering how we got here in the first place.
I'm not the person I was at 20, but I'm also not the person I thought I'd be by 30 either. Maybe that's what makes being 29 feel so weird. It's getting hit by the reality that you're right in the middle of becoming the person you want to be while looking back at how far you've come from the person you used to be. You're learning to appreciate what you have while wondering if you should be reaching for more. Somehow, at 29, all these feelings exist at once.
For the longest time, I considered my job a stepping stone to bigger opportunities. But if I’m being honest, it has become something I genuinely enjoy. I love planning events, meeting people I never thought I’d have the opportunity to meet, and creating experiences that could make a difference in other people’s lives. I love being part of something that makes people happy, from start to finish, from ingress to egress.
I may not have job-hopped and increased my salary as much as I could have, but in those nine years, I’ve led multiple beautiful events that made people feel happy and special. I may not have my first million yet, but I’ve been able to return the favor and spoil my parents, who worked so hard to give me a good education and a comfortable life.
I may not have my own house yet, but thanks to the company I’ve worked for over the past nine years, I was able to secure my first real estate investment.
I may have lost touch with some of the people I once held close, but I've also made new friends who have been just as wonderful.
I may not be married with a kid yet, but I’m in a healthy relationship that has lasted more than two years, and we have a dog together. I guess that counts?
Oh, and I’ve just started selling banana pudding. That's considered my own business, right? Well, on my terms, it does.
Admittedly, I'm still lost at 29. But being lost isn't synonymous with failure, is it?
Maybe the life I imagined for myself before wasn't wrong. Maybe I just didn't know then that life could look different and still be good.
Generations appears weekly at PhilSTAR L!fe.
WATCH: Do you still believe in marriage? (Generations Ep. 17)
August 19, 2026