Well Hell, I'm 30.



I may be 30, but I am not too old to ride the carousel!

It is not a secret that I have been completely freaked out about turning 30.  Well, I did it, and got myself out of bed!  I am going to call that progress since I was a little worried I was going to hide under the covers.  It sure helped that Danny surprised me by taking the day off so that we could do all kinds of fun activities.  Being sung to, waffles, miniature golf (I lost),  Tourney Town, pizza, some really bad basketball, and a bike ride to try to work off all the unhealthy food that was consumed makes for a very nice day.

So what was so scary about this particular birthday?  To be completely honest, I am not sure other than the fact that I did not get everything done in my twenties that I had hoped to accomplish.  I had this crazy notion that I would have myself/my situation figured out by now.  I remember in college telling my roommate that it often felt as if everyone else knew what in the world was going on, yet I was completely clueless.  Jenn's response, I don't think they have it figured out either, and they probably think that you do.

Many people have told me that life gets better as you go along.  To date it has been pretty good, and so I look forward to what's ahead.  At the start of March I posted on Facebook that I only have 30 days left of my 20s.  To which I received some wonderful responses.  Here are two of my favorites:

•  "When my granddaughter turned five and we were driving home from her birthday party, with all the seriousness a five year old can have, looked at me and said, 'Grandma, I don't know what the big deal is about turning five.'  So she would say to you, 'Laurie, I don't know what the big deal is about turning 30."
•  "Laurie, I am fast approaching my 60s, about 160 days.  Your feelings about your age are valid.  I will not try to tell you otherwise.  I have unmet goals from every decade in my life.  Living life got in the way of my goals.  I have accepted that I probably will not be acclaimed Emperor of the Universe.  Being the best paralegal I can be is a pretty good accomplishment."

As I start this new decade I will try to remember that turning 30 is not that big a deal, and that it is okay for living life to get in the way of my goals.  As a Facebook friend once told me, I have a pretty good life.  I just wish 30 came with some kind of discount program like AARP (I will never forget how excited my Mom was to turn 50 because it meant she got an AARP membership).  Of course it would need to apply to non-retired people since my goal of retiring by 30 was derailed by work in education/non-profit.  Oh well - let's just put that on my list for the 30s.