38 is Great

I’m not gonna lie, this number is kinda tripping me out a bit.

TODAY I AM THIRTY EIGHT YEARS OLD.

So think about this for a second.  From age 0-10 you go through a lot of change, from baby to pre-teen.  A decade of so many new changes all the time.  Even though you don’t really remember the first 2 1/2-3 years of life it is still an incredible amount of growth and new information constantly streaming into your mind and body.  Then the next decade you go from 10-20.  What?  You start out in elementary school and end up in college, or at least college aged.  That is also a crazy, loco amount change and it’s no wonder each year feels like a really big deal because it is a really big deal.  People make some really big decisions at those ages while still having very little wisdom and experience.  So those first two decades you go from baby to child, child to adult.

Then the next decade comes, 20-30 and… you realize you’re just an adult.  Still.  The rapid-fire growth and change has slowed considerably.  Sure depending on personal factors perhaps you are still on a very steep educational trajectory or maybe you find yourself on a journey of spiritual enlightenment (not sarcastically said) and therefore your growth and change are still very much a part of life, but for the most part you are kinda settled into you.  For many people there are some major life changes this decade like careers, marriage, kids and family.  I mean it is no small thing.  But you are just you.

So here I am almost 2 decades of this full grown, for-real-adult stage and I’m still find myself looking around occasionally wondering where the actual adults are and who left me in charge of three little people that I apparently co-created and do I really have to make dinner and pay the bills?  Spending the first two decades of our lives waiting to be grown-ups–constantly growing, learning, changing–makes it hard to settle into the idea of being an actual grown up.  Despite the evidence piling up around me, sometimes it seems like time is standing still because I feel and look quite a bit the same as I did when I was in my early 20’s.  Which is why that number 38 is hard to wrap my mind around.

However, the idea that I could completely fall into this ageless complacency is silly as my kids are here to remind me otherwise.  A bit of background to this story…. Lamp has a tendency to say rude things to people without realizing she’s being rude, thus we’ve trained her to ask us first if it’s OK to say something.  For example, as we were talking to a woman one day she pulled me aside and whispered in my ear, “Is it OK to say you have a flat head?”  No I told her, that’s not OK to say.  Both of us relieved that she had asked, we moved on without having that extra-awkward moment.  Well one day, a couple weeks ago as Lamp is laying lovingly on my lap being the snuggly and cute girl she is.  Then she looks up and me and says, “Is it OK to say it looks like you have a bunch of spider webs up your nose?” Yeah, that is what it feels like to be 38.  I can’t help it and I start laughing hysterically trying to tell her at the same time that no, that’s not OK to say.

But this is the year of being kind to myself and despite a possible nose hair issue I’m gonna call it.  38 is going to be great.