We have enough youth...How about a fountain of smart?

I can remember being heartbroken at thirteen because I was worried about all the memories I was leaving behind as I progressed through my life. I bawled hot and fast at my high school graduation, not really sure I was ready for change. I cried on my way home from work the last time, the day before my first child was born, because I know that another chapter in my life was closing. Last year, I listened, sympathetically, as my husband struggled with the reality of turning thirty. He wanted his birthday completely ignored, as if that could turn back the clock. I can understand people struggling with change. I have always been a chief offender in that area. But, tomorrow, I am turning thirty, and I am happy to say that I will be jumping in with both feet. I don’t even have the urge to glance backward.

Perhaps having trouble with time passing is the hallmark of a happy life. It could be that I always wanted things to stay the same because things have always gone so well for me. Whatever the reason, I was perplexed to find myself anticipating thirty, when everyone else seems to dread it. I think I was finally able to understand what is behind this anomaly when I took the time to explain it to a friend.

As a teenager, I knew exactly who I wanted to be. I wanted to desperately love to learn. To facilitate this, I collected reference books. These treasures of knowledge often went largely unread. I was a teenager, after all. I wanted to not care what everyone else thought of me, but only answer to myself. During debate trips, however, I would wake up before the rest of the team to assure my hair and make up were done before anyone saw me. I wanted to understand and have a perspective on politics. Well, I thought I did. Looking back, my own ignorance astounds me. I wanted to be constantly concerned about the needs of others and empowered to help them. Unfortunately, teenagers don’t often have the ability to think beyond the moment and I wasn’t any better. But, I had a picture in my head of this woman. She was classy and intelligent. She was hard working and charitable. She was full of integrity and knowledge.

During the past ten years, I have changed a lot. I have learned the value of knowledge. I find myself reading books on history that would have bored me to tears before. I have found myself increasingly unafraid to stand up for my beliefs, and increasingly sure that what I believe is true. I understand what truly matters in life and have found delicious joy in the things that I once wanted to find joy in, but which left me, somehow, unsatisfied. I am happy with the way I look and the things I have. I have found a passion for freedom as I learn to understand its role in politics. My views are no longer those handed to me by others, but pure and sweet truths that I have found in my own heart. I’ve left behind the passions that rule a teenage life and found freedom in not caring what is popular, or even despised. I am who I am. Looking back, I am delighted to let go of youth. Because, it seems, as I have let go of the little things that rule the lives of young people, I have begun to embrace the qualities of that woman I always wanted to be.

My thirties are going to be amazing. I have four gorgeous children who have taught me quite clearly why the most powerful being in the universe would make parenting his “work and glory.” I have a husband who I have grown closer to each day for nine years. I still feel giddy at his touch and agony at his disappointments. We get to lay the tiles of our lives together. We get to watch our dreams come true as we learn more and more that those dreams are inherent within the wonderful life we’ve been blessed with. I have an extended family that no longer bickers over television, but instead forms the fabric of the tarp that will catch our children as they trip on those difficulties of youth that cannot be avoided. I have the pleasure of knowing that my pursuit of knowledge is limitless and with all I learn, my understanding of how much more there is out there will grow as well. It’s a breath of fresh air from those days when I used to know everything. Most importantly, I have the assurance, that I am becoming who I want to be.

I am not afraid of the future, or of leaving the past. I am happy with today being today.

Happy Birthday to me…Life just gets better from here.