Thoughts on 29

Today is my 29th birthday. That’s strange to me.

I don’t feel 29. I feel, maybe…oh, 23? 25? I don’t feel like I’m this close to 30. At least, I don’t feel the way I always thought I would feel when I was this close to 30.

In my younger years, I imagined it all differently. (I think it’s a sign that I’m getting older that I’m even using phrases like “in my younger years.” I know I never used to say things like that.) I never imagined my life situation itself being different, as I’m living my dream right now; I always thought I would feel different. I imagined that I would feel older….wiser….perhaps more “put together.” I thought I would feel like I had my ducks in a row more, and that I would really know what I was doing in life. I thought I would feel older, like I had actually lived the years that had passed by. I don’t, though. I feel like I somehow was transported in turbo speed through my 20s, cruising through the decade at the speed that most people go through a year.

I’m told that I’ll always feel that way. In talking to other people, I’ve been told many times that time only seems to speed up as you get older, and that having children only amplifies the phenomenon. I’ve heard that looking back, earlier years don’t seem nearly as distant and remote as this year did when I was much younger, and that the older I get, the truer that is.

I don’t know. It feels strange being this age, because something inside me feels like I really am 29…but something inside me feels like it’s all a joke. I look at my face, though, with its ever-increasing smile and laugh lines, and my hair, with it’s ever-increasing glimmers of gray, and something tells me that yes, I really am getting older.

While I don’t feel like I am old enough to have lived all of those years, I do feel like I really did live those years. True, for many years I was in a state of mere existence as I grew and searched for myself and more meaning to life, but in more recent years and especially today, I have definitely surpassed mere existence and have entered into real life. I’ve had so many wonderful experiences and have already come so far in my growth, and I know I’m not done yet. I know the years to come are going to be packed with surprises, both good and bad, and I’m really in a place right now where I can say that either way, I’m eager to see and embrace whatever it is.

I’m grateful for the life I’ve lived. It has been 29 years of growth and change, joy and sadness, laughter and tears. Wherever the next three decades take me, I’ll be forever grateful for the laugh lines and the gray hairs, and for the experiences that bring them on. God is using them all, and He’s promised not to quit working on me until He’s finished. I don’t know how long it will take, but I think that’s exciting.

Mom, Dad, Angelia, and newborn me (August 1981)