Now that I am officially smack in the middle of my thirties, I feel like enough of this decade has gone by for me to say it's been one of the best I've had so far. It always strikes me how resistant people are to turning thirty. When I look back, though, it hasn't bothered me. I had a great childhood, no question about it. I remember those days often and fondly. But after childhood comes the teens. I don't know *anyone* who is interested in revisiting those awkward, uncomfortable and often difficult years. Even though my teen years were far from awful, I truly don't miss them.
Where it seems people get hung up is on their twenties though. So many lament the loss of their twenties, speak wistfully of rewinding time, even refuse to acknowledge a year higher than 29. I look at my twenties as some of the most challenging years of my life. "Young and stupid" does not even scratch the surface of my twenties. There were a lot of growing pains. A lot of scars accrued. A lot of questions that either had no answers or, worse, had answers I'd rather not know. There were hard lessons, and expectations that led to disappointment. All signs pointed to "Life is unfair." Upon turning thirty, I have never once looked back at the previous decade longingly. The fact is, I would rather shut the door on most of it, keeping only what I have learned and what those lessons have made me.
Thirty has been good to me. Each year of this decade has been better than the one that preceded it...and not because anything was lacking. It's all just gotten better with each additional birthday candle, even when I am convinced it couldn't possibly be better than it is.
In my twenties, I was more worried about who I wasn't. In my thirties, I'm concerned with who I *am*. I am no longer focused on the ways in which I believe I fall short, the mental images of my future that haven't played out the way I had planned, and all the ways in which I am not good enough--whether that voice was my own or that of someone who claimed to care about me. I look in the mirror with clearer eyes. I see someone I *like*--maybe not everyday, but most days--and on the days that I don't, I am no longer afraid to hold that gaze and decide how to make myself better, not because I believe I am a failure, but because I finally see my own worth. And I am worth improving on this person, making her someone I can look in the eye and smile. I no longer accept being mistreated or derided or squashed until I feel inadequate. I am capable of forgiveness, but I have learned that forgiveness must be desired, and if it is not, I have to forgive for my own sake and simply walk away quietly, because I deserve not to carry that baggage with me, weighing heavily on my heart and stealing my joy. There simply is no room in my thirties for the joy-stealers and those who mean emotional harm. In my thirties, I am strong enough to walk away when I need to, and humble enough to admit when I am wrong.
More than once yesterday, I was asked, with a wink, "How old are you now? 29?" and my answer was a steady "I'm 35." I am not afraid to own that number. I am proud of the person I am now, that I wasn't ten years ago, proud of what I have survived and that it didn't beat me. Life is too precious to wish the years away or wish I didn't reach a particular number, when far too many people are denied that gift. Perhaps it's cheesy or cliche to say that. So be it. All I know is that I would rather have the additional days, adding up to a bigger number, than to *not* have it.
No, thirty-five does not scare me. I am at the center of the best years of my life and I want nothing more than to embrace it, and see where we go from here.
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