So its taken me four months to get around to writing a post about turning thirty. And that pretty much sums it up I guess. I’m busy. Busy and happy. And I don’t think I’ve ever used those two words in the same sentence before. The first decade of my life was spent avoiding work by any means necessary- hiding under my bed, hiding in my parents closet, hiding in the forest surrounding my house, feigning illness, deafness, mental incapacity, or just straight up refusing to help stack firewood. I reasoned I had better ways to spend my time than bowing to the demands of school and home. I had stories to write, clothes to design, imaginary dragons to talk to. “I can’t WAIT until I’m a grown-up” I wrote in my pink diary, “Grown-ups can do ANYTHING they want.”
The second decade of my life was spent avoiding work as well as experimenting with haircuts that best represented my teenage angst. The only point I saw in completing my homework was avoiding confrontation. I was not career-driven, but I think I kept telling everyone I wanted to go into graphic design so they would leave me alone. But I was far too busy nursing my inner-turmoil with John Steinbeck novels and Radiohead to do anything really productive. My only real goals were to get the heck out of Lake County, fall in love, and have a family. Plan B included writing a book and becoming a keyboardist in an alternative band.
There is something to be said for having realistic expectations. I did get the heck out of Lake County, earlier than anticipated and I did fall in love. Several times. Until I actually did fall in love with Andy, whom I married and started a family with. And lived happily ever after…for a week until it hit me- marriage is WORK? What the-! It turns out, marriage and motherhood require more of you than most careers do and they pay significantly less (although the benefits are pretty sweet). What happened to “Grown-ups can do anything they want?” Its bull crap. I have since learned that work of one kind or another is unavoidable. And the few exceptions to that last statement apply only to the very ill and douche bags. Not to be confused with Very Ill Douche Bags, which I believe is a Swedish electronic- music group.
I started with the cooking. It is a good thing I married a kind man with a stomach of molten lava. Before marriage I subsisted on a steady diet of tuna, microwaved potatoes, and Marshmallow Mateys. Today, thanks to ten years trial & error and the invention of cooking blogs, I feed a family of five reasonably well-balanced and delicious meals. Developing a work-ethic at age 22 by caring for a colicky infant while simultaneously learning to cook and clean, gain self-esteem, and budget is a crash-course in reality I do not recommend. Although effective, it was difficult and depressing. Depressing, yet strangely empowering. Like maybe I can do anything if I give birth to three high-maintenance girls while learning life-skills.
Maybe I can make curtains and paint furniture and grow my own vegetables and run marathons and teach piano and write a book and buy $50 boots. I’m a grown up sucka! Thirty is fantastic because I finally feel comfortable in my own skin, confident in my choices, happy to be celebrating ten awesome years with my best friend and husband, happy to have a good relationship with my three fantastic daughters, happy that I can finally make Bruschetta Chicken, get puke out of sheets, budget my money, manage my time, and all do all those other totally unglamorous things grown ups do. Thirty is unstoppable. I may even go back to school and become a graphic designer after all…as long as its not TOO much work.