Maybe it's hormones — or maybe it was that last Diet Coke — but I'm freaking out.

It's not one of those major shaking-and-screaming panic attacks. This is subtler, the kind that creeps up on you when you're not looking and pummels you from behind.

It's like one morning I got up, looked around my life and wondered — probably aloud — "Is this it?"

No husband, no kids, no three-bedroom home in Mililani with a fenced yard and a dog named Rocky.

What happened on the way to 30? Did I miss a cutoff?

This was never more apparent than two weekends ago, at a baby shower for my 28-year-old, married, gainfully employed, college-educated, home-owning girlfriend. (Who, at eight months, can still fit a size 2.) I sat next to her, overwhelmed with the suspicion that life had snuck by. Or maybe I just wasn't paying attention.

"Look at us!" lamented the only other 30-year-old at the shower. "We're 30! And we have nothing to show for it!"

We're both still renting, still paying off student loans, still wading through a life filled with more responsibilities than privileges.

We want more — except we're not sure what that means. High-paying jobs? Homes on Mariners Ridge? Husbands and kids?

We envisioned once that turning 30 would make us adults. And by our definition, that meant everything our parents were, down to their penchant for fanny packs and comfortable shoes.

And yet that's exactly what we didn't want.

We didn't want to wind up like our parents who suffered at dead-end jobs, who missed soccer games, who didn't travel, who spent weekends standing in lines or paying bills, perpetually annoyed that Monday was just around the corner.

They told us about a better life, one that had become out of their reach. It was filled with passion and creativity and maybe yearly trips to Italy.

"Don't be like us," they advised. "Be better."

So we went to college, perfected our resumes, advanced at work, bought cars or trips we couldn't afford and spiraled into debt. All to have it better.

It's no wonder our spendthrift generation has out-of-control consumer debt and a fickle attitude on jobs.

Somewhere around age 30, we look at what we've accomplished — or, more likely, what we haven't — and freak out.

We've entered a new stage in our lives. We're too young to claim a midlife crisis, though it certainly feels like one. Yet we're too old, we think, to start over again, to hit the restart button and play a new game.

So here we are, stuck somewhere between post-college depression and pre-adulthood panic.

What do we do?

Well, we can commiserate. Or just take a deep breath.

Because, when you think about it, we're here because we want to be here.

So consider the freak-out just part of the master plan.