Thoughts on Turning Thirty

Well maybe it is just the time of year

Or maybe it's the time of man

I don't know who l am

But you know life is for learning…

~Joni Mitchell, "Woodstock"

When I turned thirty almost two months ago, most people immediately divided into two camps:

1. "Well, I guess you have to start lying about your age now!"

2. "Congratulations, you survived your twenties! The twenties are the worst." 

It's funny how an arbitrary human measurement of time can create such a sense of significance: I'd been feeling the weight of my upcoming birthday for months beforehand. I was excited, but not in a rush to get there, and I definitely didn't fit into either of the two camps.

Now that I've been thirty for a while, I'm still happy about it. My body is still strong and in good working order. I love the bright silver hairs starting to show up on my head and the wrinkles around my eyes when I smile. I have better boundaries and a better sense of self than I did in my twenties and I like to think I'm at least slightly more mature.

On the other hand, my twenties were absolutely incredible. They began with my first solo trip, a month in Bellingham, Washington full of vivid memories of walking alongside the bay and exploring Northwestern forests and eating Belgian waffles at five in the morning. My twenties continued with a string of solo trips, a devastating heartbreak, then wider and more interesting adventures. Always on or planning for the next trip, blowing into town for a few months and then hitting the road again. I promised myself that if I was still doing that when I was thirty, I would reconsider my life.

Then Zach entered the scene, and life took an unexpected twist. Getting married, then years of planning for the Pacific Crest Trail. A six-month hike. A nine-month period of house-hunting. Buying a house, settling down, putting literal roots in the ground, wanting a baby, not getting a baby, getting restless, taking a trip, trying to put roots down again, failing at that, escaping to Portland for seven months. 

My twenties ended in July with another solo trip of a kind, touring with Insomniac Folklore back to Missouri for a visit. Fresh off an exhausting and elating and incredibly intense road trip, I was emotionally undone. I cried a lot. I spent most of my actual birthday bawling— but not because I was sad, but because I was so grateful. 

That day, I sat on the bed in my parents' spare room and wrote this in my diary: 

Thirty. It fits. It suits me. It feels right. It feels familiar. It feels inevitable, because, I guess, it is. And yet there is a sparkle of magic to it, a sense of gratitude that I've made it this far. So much has changed. I've learned so much.

And yet I feel that the past few months have not been about learning, but about remembering. Remembering to live in the Mystery. Remembering to come begging to God because I am not strong enough. Remembering that people like me and that I have so much to offer. Remembering to stand tall, express myself, take up space, be an inconvenience. Remembering how much I enjoy nurturing people. Remembering that I'm happiest in a group. Remembering how much it means to me when my friends are willing to let me go.

I want to be a vagabond, an earth mother, a healer, a giver, a dork who is unafraid. I want to bring magic to a world that desperately lacks it, and I want people to find the magic that draws them closer to God.

I have no idea what the next decade of my life is going to look like. I have no idea whether we'll settle down or take flight again, or where our interests will lead us, or what we'll feel called to do next. 

I had assumed that my life path would get clearer the older I got, but the opposite is happening. Grace is given to us moment by moment, and sometimes our plans for the future have to happen that way, too. This summer has been about learning to rest in uncertainty, to embrace it, to find joy and excitement in it. Step by step. Just keep walking. Wherever it is we're supposed to go, I believe that we'll get there.

~~~