This is me, being 30.
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| I LOVE THAT CARDIGAN. Birthday present to myself, purchased on the most fantastic ladies' weekend before my birthday. Extremely worth it. |
In 2013, Rilo Kiley released rkives. That year I walked a lot, listening to the dying strains of my favorite band while anticipating what I thought would be my final Seattle summer bloom. The best stretches of my walks reached over I-5, strips of sidewalk where I could lean over and gaze on downtown to the distant south. One day, I moseyed back home after watching a movie in a theatre that would later become one of my places, and "A Town Called Luckey" came on.
"Happy Birthday, you're halfway to sixty...."
I immediately whipped out my phone, scrolling about six years in the future on my Google calendar, and added a new event:
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| I set it so I got an email AND a notification, just in case I forgot I was getting monumentally older. |
And now, I've crossed that event off my list.
I listened to a lot of Jenny Lewis on my birthday.* I made healthy choices, I taught adolescents how to write, I ate a burger so good it almost inspires weeping. **
The most extraordinary thing is how ordinary it feels. No massive rift as one decade moves into the next. No earth shattering moments, leaving an unblemished goddess surrounded by the ruins of my twenties. Just...me. Who I am. What I have. Life going on as marvelously normal as ever.
Thirty is good so far. Twenty-nine was great. Things are ...dare I say?... going well.
I do have plans for shattering life the tiniest bit this year. But, at the risk of exposing my overly-sentimental marshmallow core, as long as I've got these two people in my life, it's fine.
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| Seriously, it was one of the best birthdays. Sun! Food! Family! Yes, in that order! |
I'm halfway to sixty, and apologies to Ms. Lewis, but I don't have to sing myself towards freedom. I've found myself. Happy.
*It doesn't hurt that her latest album is FANTASTIC.
**See? I did plan a whole dinner this year! Uneeda=manna from the gods.
