Last

I am officially in my last year of my thirties. I slid into my 39th year on earth in the midst of a ridiculously busy week. It was packed volunteering with the PTO, helping run events at the school we planned, with holiday fun with the kids, and going from one commitment to the next. So, this milestone that sometimes calls attention to yourself was instead just a normal day with no fanfare. Which, honestly, was what I needed it to be. So much so, I tried to make this birthday quiet. It was so busy, I turned off the notification on Facebook. A few people didn’t let me skate by though.

It sounds mundane for a birthday when people often do things to have a day about them, but honestly, I am alive. Every single day, for a piece of it, is about me. I marvel at that all the time. That I get to live. It is a small life, but gosh is it good most days. I fee like everyday is Mother’s Day and my birthday. I feel appreciated almost all the time.

My problems are ones of the privileged. It doesn’t make them less of a problem, but I recognize that these challenges are not basic survival. We don’t live in a war zone. We have a home and a community. We have loved ones that share genes and ones we found along the way. I am loved and love. Life is good even when it is hard.

I have a deep love for this decade of my life. My thirties have been wonderful. I found Match, had two more daughters, gave the kids a back yard, made a little village filed with lovely humans that I love to spend time with, and much more. I can honestly say that I’ve done all the big things in life I set out to do.

I”m privileged to do some other things on top this: yoga here and there, writing here and there, break bread with people who make my life rich. I am able to take my kids on adventures or to see shows that make your heart tingle and being able to be involved slightly in the experience of my kids education. Helping here and there in the same building my grandfather and his sons began a family shop, taking my kids to the same church I sat in when I was little with my mother, being welcomed at Match’s family, and more. This are the real gifts I have in my life.

There are things that could be better. I wish it was easy to raise kids with Exes or that I understood why it is so damn hard some weeks. I wish I knew how to understand whatever is going on with my family where slights and misunderstandings mean an ending instead of an opportunity to something else. I just don’t understand it. Having a full life doesn’t mean that there aren’t pieces bereft taking up spaces. Yet, these are the conflicts are affirming in their own ways and serve a purpose of their own.

I hope that in this last year: I find a way to write the book. I’m just not sure the book is what everyone says it should be. How do you put into words all the hurt and not have forgiveness at the end? I hope to find a way to save for the future. To tie the knot. To figure out window treatments in this home. Clean the attic. Figure out a job. Tell my kids how much I adore and love them so much they feel it when we’re far apart. Find more time for Match and I because this season is busy and full and some days we’re passing ships. That the dog, who is a love, will chill out a little because I do not need to know the guy down the street is walking his dog by the house once again. I hope M will eat some vegetables or fruit this year. I love a good carb, but there is a lot of merit to fruit salad too. I hope to usher in forty like thirty–with good friends old and new… and maybe a trip with faces that I’ve seen at all life’s most poignant moments. I wish that I read some more books that will live a second life inside me. I hope that I become a better house cleaner, although that’s unlikely. I can be a good person and mom with a messy house. My pre-disposition that the two are mutually exclusive is unfounded, but I’d love to be the same person with a house that is tidy most of the time. I wish to go to on vacation once or twice a year. Soon. Because I like to take our shitshow on the road and yell at the kids in places outside our home radius. Plus see their faces light up and make some memories. I hope to breathe in ocean air this summer in a the heat and feel the sting of the sun a little the next day. I hope to see us more in house of God because I should teach them that better and I’ve made a lot of peace with it. They need that too. To sit uncomfortable with God until something shifts and you find those little rays of faith and comfort. I hope to cry less at every movie, commercial, FB video, ridiculous stories that pull at heartstrings. I’ve been a leaky faucet and the kids are onto me and I’d like to cry a little less over these things, mmkay. A lot and a little all at once.

I hope and wish and pray that this to do list has time to mature, but knowing that I’ve set out to do what I thought really matters and I’m okay. I loved. I was loved. And I hope to do more of it next decade.

But first I hope to savor and finish a few of those things this 39th year if there’s time. Gosh, life is so good and so hard and so wonderful. Here’s to the ending which is just a beginning again.