The First Thirty Years

Thirty.

I watched with bated breath as the glowing green letters of the clock in our car blinked away the last minute of yesterday and my twenties.

I had been anticipating entering my thirties so devoutly that I neglected to contemplate the passing of my twenties. They left me unceremoniously last night as we slid across the icy roads of Highland. I looked out the window at the black and white of a snowy night and bid farewell to a TRULY awesome ten years of my life.

What does this coming decade have in store for me?

My twenties were shaking. Shaping.

Will my thirties be as changing and chaotic and bold? Or will they pass with a more quiet assurance?

And as my children begin to really discover the world, will my thirties afford me more steadiness and more wisdom than my twenties did?

Will I be more or less creative?

Will I finally learn how to simplify? Or - more importantly - budget?

Will I become more brave? Or just more stubborn?

How many more children will I have? And will I know that they are all here, all in my arms, somewhere within this decade?

When I was a girl, I thought thirty was so old. An adult. So 'other' in the way that the adult world is when you are very small. but now, here I am in the tender hours of being 30 - and I still feel so young!

Young - but exhausted. And with great things to show for my first thirty years on this planet: