Posted By AmyD. on January 19, 2009

Where am I these days? I’ve been in and out of the light for a few years now. I’ve spent the better part of the last year in the black hole of depression. I’ve pissed off friends and made new ones. I’ve learned the real meaning of the word, “support” and I feel there are people I owe a lot to in terms of that.

So my birthday is rapidly approaching, I’m not sure where the mid-thirties begin but I know I’m headed in that general direction. I don’t miss my twenties, my youth, or my childhood. I’m more comfortable in my own skin now than I have been in years. Even though there is quite a bit more of that skin than I prefer.

I remember when 30 seemed very old and surely that meant 40 was ancient. I’ll be 33 near the end of this month. I’m happy to say it, I don’t have the need that some women do to hide their age. Over the past couple of years I’ve started looking for wrinkles, laugh lines, and crow’s feet. Once or twice I thought I spotted a gray hair… thought being the operative word there. I see the signs of aging, living, and too much stress. Still, it certainly beats the alternative. I am actually looking forward to the rest of my thirties and even my forties.

The flipside is that I guess I’m a grown up now. I like my vegetables, rarely eat cold pizza for breakfast anymore, I often find myself ordering salads and vegetables instead of potatoes or rice pilaf (dear God, do people still eat rice pilaf? I mean, outside of a school cafeteria?) and I find myself monitoring my fiber intake (currently, I should be getting more, a lot more) and I find myself occasionally distracted by the thought of clogged arteries and cholesterol. And that pizza? Yeah, it has stuff like zucchini, tomatoes, mushrooms, olives, and basically as much vegetation as I can layer on there (just no onions, please) and no pepperoni, ham, sausage, etc.

I order iced tea instead of sodas, I berate myself for drinking too many diet sodas, I berate myself for not drinking enough water, and I often find myself avoiding sweets or only having them on special occasions. This is directly opposed to my early twenties when I kept several candy bars in my desk drawer and a candy bar with a coke was a perfectly acceptable breakfast to eat on the way to work.

I don’t make as many trips through the golden arches or the place of burger royalty. Now I find myself bitching about how craptacular the food is at Carl’s Jr. on Twitter while the rest of my peers tease me about even approaching the drive through.

I drink coffee every morning and switch it up to hot green tea later in the day. Gotta watch those antioxidants.

Now, I look around and declare my daily life as too sedentary and actually consider dusting off my Total Gym and making some sort of commitment to myself to work out daily. Oh and yoga, I definitely need to get some yoga in because flexibility and good muscle tone helps prevent osteoporosis. I take vitamins and supplements. And, I realize I’m not in good shape or even all that healthy.

The concern is there, I’m waiting for the “want to” to kick in. I guess I hoped that magically in my 30′s I would have a burning desire to work out and become lean, trim, and healthy. I have a burning desire to fit into cuter clothes… and to have less sagging boobage, maybe the rest will follow.

Things like “retirement” and “401k” mean more than they did 10 years ago, that’s for sure.

And, I look around at my kids and realize that in the big scheme of things, I’m probably only about a decade (plus 5 years or more, please!) away from grandchildren. Ethan is going to be a senior next year and Kate is going to be a freshman!

I realize these things more now around my birthday than I did even 3 years ago. It’s crazy to me, bizarre even because deep down I’m still here, this eternal youth sort of voice in my head that screams there is always tomorrow and all of that dull, boring, tedious, mundane garbage is years and years away before I really need to concern myself with it.

Even with the responsibilities that seem to only grow with time, I have a lot of optimism about the future and wanting to make the most of the time I have with my family, especially my children. That’s a feeling I didn’t have in my twenties and it was worth the passing of time to get to this point.

Categories: Personally
Tags: 33, aging, birthday, birthdays, family, introspection, Kids, mid-thirties