30 is the new....30.

Today is the last day of my twenties.


If this were a book or a blockbuster  indie movie (wherein I would be played by Zooey Deschanel), I would have spent the day running around the city with my girlfriends trying to cross everything off my "Things to Do Before I'm 30" list. You know:

• live out at least one scene from a Molly Ringwald movie
• run a marathon
• try on a dress at Neiman Marcus and do that twirly thing in the 360 mirror
• do a That Girl hat toss in the middle of the city
• make the perfect grilled cheese sandwich
• ride a trolley
• visit Switzerland
• throw a fondue party
• go bungee jumping
• visit the Grand Canyon
• solve a Rubik's cube
• learn fluent Spanish
• read War and Peace
• create a Flash Mob that breaks out in choreographed show tunes at the mall.

Ok, side note, this would be an awesome movie. Just sayin'.

But I didn't do any of that. I was a real person today, with a real life: I woke up early to go to a work meeting, went to church with my husband, made lunch, kissed my husband goodbye when he went to work, did laundry, went to yoga class, came home, and made dinner. I'll study for a final exam before bed and maybe have some tea. And you know what, I am content with that.

I am a woman who has been blessed with 29 fantastic years, and I should celebrate the opportunity to begin a new one. That's the whole point of a birthday: celebrating the dawn of a new year, a new chance at life. And that's what I'm going to do. I will not cower at the number 30 as though it were the ever-lowering pendulum in an Edgar Allan Poe short story. I will embrace it, with all the excitement that embarking into a brand new decade offers. I have so much to be thankful for, right now as I turn 30: family, friends, new adventures in seminary, a great job with great coworkers, good health, growing faith, and a husband who I adore and who adores me back. And if I feel like wearing a pink barrette in my hair or eating cheesecake for breakfast one day, I will do so with a dignity that I could not carry off in my twenties.  

So bring it on, 30. Let's do this. 

Me, 28 years ago.