Annotations for People: Cabrera-gloria

I never thought I'd be me, a California Chicana, turning 30 in New York.

Turning 30 to my mom meant being alone, divorced, raising three children on welfare to pay the rent, while working as a housekeeper on the side to survive. My mother, denied a college education because in those days her brothers, my uncles, said women were meant for marriage and not for college degrees. Turning 30 to my sister meant being alone, raising four children in a subsidized apartment, juggling it all while trying to finish college. My sister at 30, willing to give it all she had for herself and her children.

So here I am, trying to understand how I fit into this familial paradigm. Turning 30 for me means being alone, by choice, single and childless by choice, living and working in New York City with two university degrees, a career-bound Chicana transplanted in this far off land miles away from friends who after graduation from college settled into comfortable lives, and to new jobs, new cars, new relationships in the same city. So with autumn's changing leaves, I'm thinking about the changes in my life, how after all my struggles, my tears, my triumphs, I am actually turning 30 in New York, the Big City, on my own.

What's even more exciting, even more significant to me? Turning 30 means redefining the paradigm, changing the future for my daughter one day.