I have to be candid here… I’m sorry for the break; I’ve had some heavier than usual stuff swirling around me lately (Chris Martin and Gwyneth Paltrow’s “conscious uncoupling” amongst other things) and serious things are the ones I struggle blogging about.  It’s always a challenge to figure out how I feel and then to translate that to words… it makes my head hurt.

My younger sister turned 30 this past week.  Our respective 30th Birthday celebrations were quite different (there may have been tears for mine—but who doesn’t cry on their birthday?!).  It got me thinking about her first 30 years and how I’ve been a part of each year.  That makes me feel old.  I’d venture to say even more so than my own birthday.  It also got me thinking about how I don’t feel my age at all.  I started mentally compiling a list of reasons why I don’t feel 31 and I’ll keep the self-deprecation to a minimum.

Reasons I don’t feel my age

1. I leave the house at least 3 mornings a week with wet hair—for work.

2. I still struggle with exercise and eating right.  Still.  10 years later.

3. I wear Chuck Taylors with shocking regularity.

4. I actually own nothing of value with the exception of two TVs and all my Apple products.

5. Money management?

6. I have way more teeshirts than dress shirts.

7. I own a very impractical two door stick-shift car.

When it comes to aging, I always think about an assignment we had to do in 5th grade health class—we had to make a timeline of the rest of our lives filled with important events and at what age they would happen.  At first, I was filled with anxiety because even then I had no concept of what the next day would hold let alone 30 years of days.  Once I overcame the seriousness of the task (they didn’t really expect us to know when we’d die, right?!) I think I slopped down that I’d graduate in 4 years of college, have some ambiguous corporate job, wake up at 7 every morning, be married by 25 and have kids by 30.  Obvi, that timeline was rooted in the idealistic views of my 5th grade mind and I’ve managed to embrace the fact that my real-life timeline is very different from my imagined one.  Sometimes I let that silly timeline get to me and I start thinking about all that I *haven’t* done.  I can’t really say that I know how to combat it other than to let it in, let it have about 5 minutes and then get rid of it with thoughts of all that I have done and all that I do have.

I’m pretty blessed and I definitely know it.  Thank you to all of you lovelies that keep me chasing creativity; the ones of you who challenge me to look at the world, who keep me running and cooking and striving to be the best me I can be.  And not least, thank you to my amazing sister who makes 30 look sparkly and fabulous.