Four months ago if you reminded me that on my next birthday I would be 30 years OLD, I would honestly break down and cry. 30 terrified me to no end. I can remember thinking on my 25th birthday, only five more years to 30...and right now you're half way to 50! And then here would come the teary eyes and the panic.
You see, I thought there were all these things that I HAD to do before I reached 30. I thought I HAD to have the perfect job, the perfect little family, the perfect house, the perfect body....the list goes on and on. Everything needed to be perfect.
And then one night at work while talking with my friend Lori I had an epiphany...my life IS perfect simply because it's mine.
I have a perfect job because I get to work with (most of) my best friends. We make it a point to laugh every single day, to encourage each other (Good Game!), and to keep things as drama free as we possibly can. My boss knows I do good work and he ever trades recipes with me once in a while!
I have the perfect family already. I have a husband who loves me unconditionally. Who right now at this moment is signing a birthday card that he bought yesterday in his game room because he thinks he's sneaky. A man who has seen me at my absolute worst and still held me and told me he loved me. He has never failed me, always encouraged me to follow whatever silly plan or idea I come up with. A man who would rather sit with me on the couch and watch "Big Bang Theory" than to go out and get trashed with his friends. He healed a broken heart the day he said he loved me and I will be forever thankful for that.
I always thought I HAD to have two kids by the time I was 30. I don't know where I got the idea that it was mandatory and that I had failed if I didn't have two children running around our home. But I realized that, maybe, just maybe, that isn't my lot in life. Maybe I'm supposed to be the cool aunt that my nieces and nephews can talk to about that messy stuff that happens in life when they aren't ready to talk to their parents yet. I can hug and kiss and laugh and play with the babies that come in out family...and then I can send them home. Once I realized that I was actually Okay without kids, 30 didn't seems so menacing.
Our house isn't perfect by any means. The carpet is stained and needs to be replaced. The back deck is ready to fall off the house. Our garage is a mess, my kitchen is disorganized, and Molly's toys stay in her toy box only for the length of time it takes me to vacuum. But, as of last week, I have the perfect laundry room thanks to some hard work from my brother and Randy. It is perfect and just what I wanted. We have plans to remodel our kitchen to make it perfect for us. We also have plans to replace the carpet with laminate, build a better deck and do some landscaping in the yard. Our home may not be perfect YET, but it is a work in progress and will be soon.
And my body? Oh it's FAR from perfect. I'm perfectly aware of it's imperfections. I'm finding my way, albeit slowly. I'm learning to listen to what my body is saying instead of ignoring it. It's taken all of 30 years to get to that point.
I love my life...and I fully intend to embrace 30 and make it the best year of my life...so far.
