Today is my birthday!


And not just any birthday...but my 30th.

Pretty nuts, huh? Turning thirty has brought out the sentimentality in me. I feel like I need to talk about turning thirty. This isn't just something you do without really thinking about it. Especially me, because you know...I may be thirty now, but I'm not REEEAALLY thirty. You know? I can't be thirty because thirty year olds are adults. They are grown-ups, right? I have too much youthful excitement to be this old. I still have immature stubbornness. I'm still goofy and say all the wrong things. I'm still experimenting with life and what I want out of it. I have always felt like I was meant to be in twenties, for like ever. I'm not supposed to really grow up. My spirit is still so young.


Well, let me just say, I think I have actually accepted this milestone. I've come to terms with a new realization. Growing old does not mean growing stale. When did we accept this misconception in our society? When did young become better than old? With age, we learn. We learn what makes us happy and then with age, we pursue it. I look back at my twenties...my first real decade of adulthood and what a decade that was. I can honestly say it was a happy decade. I remember a lot of laughter, adventures, and smiles. I became a wife. I became a mother. I learned more about myself in those ten years than in any other phase of my life.
But now, I know. I know what I want and who I am.
Here's the exciting part. In a lot of ways, those trial years are behind me now. I've grown into the person I am now, so now I can fully BE the person I am now. I can pursue my dreams and goals with the obstinate drive of someone who has been through the rights and the wrongs. Someone who knows how quickly the time passes and how wasteful self-doubt can be. Someone who has been around the world and met so many different people and taken bits and pieces of all that to create the mosaic of me.
I'm growing older, but life is not a hill. Why must we peak in the middle? Maybe life is really a steady climb, with no descent. The majority of our mistakes behind us, the lessons learned, the experience under our belt.

And now, at thirty, I have more momentum than I have ever had. I cannot wait to see what the next thirty have in store.