Turning 30

Oh....20. I miss you and your freedom.

I’ll be 30 in a couple days. Yikes! Does make a girl think. As most people with a 9 in the one’s column, I've thought about this birthday a lot. For the most part, I’ve been fine this year, I’ve been excited, content, hopeful…..until about 2 days ago.

Oh, man, I feel like a mess. I’ve spent the last few days intermittently freaking out. All I can think about is turning 30. What's wrong with me? I’m listening to 90’s music (not sure why because that wasn’t my 20’s, but I've linked a few beauties) and I just want to shut the door and have a really long cry. I want to mourn my 20’s, which I guess is normal. I want to let go of all the decisions I made, all the things I did and didn’t do, all the things I “should” have done and “shouldn’t” have done. The people I hurt, the thoughts I had, all the regrets and pain.

Starting our year as RAs...not my favorite job, but I loved getting to know Catherine.

The biggest questions swirling in my head right now, “You’ve lived through your 20’s and what do you have to show for it? Now that your life is on a certain trajectory, what do you think about it? Did you get to live like you were in your 20’s? Did you experience everything the 20’s have to offer?”

I ask back, “Well, what should I have to show for it? Should I have bought a house? Have a steady career? Should I have partied more? Saved more money? Should I just now be thinking about having kids, instead of having 3 children, one of whom is 6?! Should I have waited to get married and lived on my own?”

 

We're all turning 30 this year!

Oh that word “should”!  Hidden in that word is the idea that there is a right way and a wrong way to do things. That there was a major plan that I didn’t see, but if I had seen it, I would have done things differently.  I put a lot of “shoulds” on myself sometimes, but now that I’m more aware of them, I try to let them go by and I don’t board that train, usually, but wow, what having a birthday can do!

 

Pretty much my favorite song ever..so sexy.

Yet this is the life I have. It’s rather constricting to only see the world through this set of eyes, especially when there are so many different perspectives and experiences. I wonder about that a lot. What it would like to be somebody else.

I could probably do a much better job of living this life if I got to have a do-over. But if I did one thing differently, that one thing would change the whole course of it, wouldn’t it? So, it seems quite void to think about that, I guess.

Oh man, I could do some deep thinking right now. Somebody pass the hookah.

 Lovely song...always takes me back.

One thing’s for sure: my 20’s have changed me. Having kids has changed me, Josh’s death has changed me, going through severe postpartum depression has changed me. And I want to keep changing and growing and learning. I want to enter my 30s with an open heart and an open mind.

Celebrating 21 years old at the Olive Garden.

I still have big dreams and goals, and I hope that my 30s will be better than my 20s. I feel freer than I ever have, I feel like I'm learning about who I am and I feel more comfortable in my own skin. That’s something I would have never said at 20.

 

  This song came on the radio the other day...remember it? Hint:

...that incessant little rich boy...

I guess I really am excited about my 30s….so much life to experience, so many things to do and places to go and so many relationships to deepen. I just need to have my moment of looking in the past and remembering, the bitter parts and the sweet parts. 

So farewell 20s.....until we meet again.

Celebrating 30 at Artisan Bistro.