Friday, February 20, 2004

I'm 30.  I don’t know why that feels so old.  I look at most of my peers at work and they are generally older and yet they don’t seem old to me.  I do have two people working for me who were born in the 80s, that hurts a little.  But I don’t think that’s why I feel old.

Maybe it comes from being a task oriented person.  So many of the goals I set for myself, for my life, were things to do before I was 30:  get married, get a good job, have kids.  So now what? 

My 20s marked such change, such accomplishment.  The first apartment, my first true love, my first car, my first real job, my ASA, my FSA, my first child, my second child.  Real decisions that were mine to make, real consequences that were mine to take.  Somewhat unlike my first 2 decades, the third was up to me.

I worked so hard, always working towards something bigger than that day.  I had a “plan”.  But the plan has ended.  Or rather, the plan was completed.  Deadlines were met, though not always on budget.  I guess I feel like I spent my 20s building my life, and now, well now I guess I just get to live it.  And that’s not so bad, just different.

It’s not like all this happened on Tuesday, I think my birthday just dragged me out of denial.  The something bigger that I was working towards, well here I am.  Now it’s more important to live in the moment.  Now it’s more important to sing wheels on the bus with everything that I am than it is to memorize pension accounting methods.  Now it’s more important to plat Mario Party 5 with my family than, well, maybe than anything – because that’s what makes Timothy say he loves me 725.37 (I guess that sounds like a big number to him, not sure where the decimals come from).

So no plan for now.  It’s an adjustment, but I think I’ll survive it.  If I get desperate, I can always start planning for retirement.

Josh threw me a great party on my birthday; Timothy picked the theme.  While they were getting it ready I sat in the living room with Morgan on my lap.  He kept cuddling up under my chin, pretending to tickle me and laughing hysterically.  It was then that I realized that I was arrived.  I thanked my 20s, and had a party with my family.  It was a great birthday.