thirty

30.

Damn.

I don't feel old enough to be thirty. Thirty to me is a grown up. She has kids, is solid in her career choice and direction... maybe she has her masters degree. Thirty feels settled in her home and knows what direction her life is heading and has control over it. Thirty is set in her morals and has definite opinions on things and is active in her world to uphold her morals. She is cool, calm and confident.

I, on the other hand, am not.

I don't know shit about my life. I still have that annoying habit of every desire being a contradiction to itself. Like how I want to start my homestead but be a traveling nurse. Not compatible. In one breath I am talking about going back to school for midwifery but on the exhale saying how I want to start a non-profit garden. It's confusing and annoying, for me and Tom.

I am married. I do have that going for me. But happily? That's hard to say. We're still figuring out what marriage means. In hind sight we probably should have tried to figure these things out a bit more BEFORE tying the knot, but here we are regardless. It's a challenge. He's lovely but I fear for the future. Another chronic plague of mine: anxiety about the unknown. I freeze in new situations making me yearn for the comfortable past.

In so many ways I feel more lost than I did even in my teens. I felt more together back then. I had my group of friends who kept me on a good path. Maybe it was their influence or just the simplicity of life back then, but I genuinely felt like a good person who made good decisions. Now it feels more grey. Not that I have questionable morals or anything, but there are so many ways to look at the world who's to say what is right? How am I supposed to be a good mother if I don't even have a clear sense of the world?

I definitely don't feel old enough to be thirty, but I also feel like doors are closing. Thirty year olds can't quit their jobs and live on a hippy commune for a summer. They can't intern for free and live in a school bus. There is a certain level of maturity that is expected. A certain amount of consideration for the future. There are also only a few more years left of "safe" child bearing. Clocks are definitely ticking and its FUCKING STRESSFUL.

But here we are regardless.

Here's to 30.