“As a child I assumed that when I reached adulthood, I would have grown-up thoughts.”
-David Sedaris
May and June are busy for our family. It’s not only the end of a school year, although since I work for a school system, the school calendar continues to dictate the tides of our day-to-day life. We have several family birthdays and special occasions during the month of May, in between Mother’s Day and Father’s Day; we have five birthdays to celebrate. On May 17th, I turned thirty-four. Thirty-four, for those of you who may not have experienced it quite yet, is apparently the age at which you have to start counting up how old you are. I found myself doing math or thinking about how old Amelia will be before I could confidently answer the question, “how old are you?” Thankfully, I work in a job where it’s not only acceptable, but also entertaining, to respond by asking, “how old do you think I am?” to which I am immediately either told something around the age of 17 or something around the age of 65, both of which, for the current moment, are too far off to have any affect on my self esteem.
This particular year was a very mom-ish birthday. We had one daughter who was sick enough to need to stay home from daycare, it rained all day, we were packing to leave for Tennessee, and I had several meetings at work. It was just another day. We did manage to eat cake after we put Eleanor to bed; I feel that teaching Amelia to eat cake just before bedtime has been a parenting win. Thankfully, our bathroom leak and subsequent industrial dehumidifiers weren’t temporarily put in until the next week. It wasn’t a bad birthday at all and I truly appreciated Adam’s effort (along with that of my parents and brother/sister-in-law) to make it special. I’m grateful for the last year in so many ways and thrilled to see what the next has in store.
In fact, it was a good birthday; any day with cake and celebrations are good days. Bring on 34!
All of that aside, it is a strange feeling. I continue to be undeniably adult with a stable job (in a career I’ve been in for ten years), two kids, a dog, a marriage to my best friend that’s nearing its seventh anniversary and a house payment. I have officially entered my mid-thirties. When I look at the decades, I consider 30-33 to be early-thirties, 34-36 to be mid-thirties and 37-39 to be late-thirties. Argue it as you will, but that’s how I’m calling it.
“Adults are just obsolete children…”
– Dr. Seuss
Anyway, on the night of May 17th, as I watched Adam light thirty-four birthday candles, listened to Amelia sing “Happy Birthday,” tried to make a concrete birthday wish without telling so as not to break the magic, and worried about whether the massive flames above my cake would set off the smoke alarm, I felt very adult.
“I am convinced that most people do not grow up…we marry and dare to have children and call that growing up. I think what we do is mostly grow old. We carry accumulations of years in our bodies, and on our faces, but generally our real selves, the children inside, are innocent and shy as magnolias.”
–Maya Angelou
For the first time, life isn’t racing toward the next big event. I’m not counting the days to a wedding or a birth or a move. Adam and I have built a wonderful and strong life together, but until now, that life hasn’t been quite so rooted. For the first time, we aren’t talking about where we’ll live next, what house we may look at, what town we could try or what job applications to complete. It’s a strange feeling, and honestly, not necessarily good or bad. I can’t say with certainty that we won’t move again or add to our family in the next few years, but I also can’t say that we will. This is one of those realizations that is somehow simultaneously suffocating and liberating.
There is always something to work toward, to improve and with two busy, growing girls, there will be no shortage of firsts, of changes, of mistakes, of fears, of growth. We definitely haven’t arrived, but this is how things turned out. There's no time to waste; there's no excuse. This - today - is life.
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