Time flies...

I turned 30 on February 21, 2010. Almost 5 months later, I still don’t believe it. When I was younger (a lot younger), I pictured myself at 30 as an old, decrepit woman that would have 14 cats calling my home, theirs. I was definitely wrong. Where I got the idea that magically at the beginning of my 3rd decade I would turn into a somewhat friendlier version of the Wicked Witch of the West, I will never know. Could it have been my mother?

My mom turned 30 on March 17, 1989. She did not handle it with the grace that any woman who spent the 80’s as a twenty-something fashionista should. She cried. I clearly remember her sobbing at the kitchen sink doing dishes as my sister and I ate breakfast before school. She obviously wasn’t old and decrepit. I imagine she just realized that a decade of her life passed her by so quickly that she barely had time to breathe. I understand now. I spent the 29th year of my life feeling the same way; dreading loosing my youth, wondering where the last 10 years went.

As it turned out, her 30’s didn’t ruin my mother. She didn’t age significantly. She didn’t stop doing all the wild and crazy things she did in her 20’s. In fact, it’s possible her 30’s were the best years of her life. I won’t let them ruin me either, mom. Look out 31, here I come! But not for 222 more days, please.