thirty isn't so dirty...
I've always heard people call it the "dirty thirty." I don't know why. I'm sure the rhyming aspect has something to do with it, but when I hear the word "dirty," I think of something that's gross. Things like dirty laundry or a dirty diaper. No one wants or likes either one of those things. One of them gets wadded up and thrown in a basket in the dark corners of a closet, and the other one ends up in the trash. And so it seems to me that thirty has gotten a bad wrap. That being thirty is gross or unwanted. But one day in, and thirty actually feels like twenty, which feels like sixteen, and I am amazed at how one so quickly finds them self in a new decade of life.
Aaron did a fantastic job of making my thirtieth birthday fun and memorable. He planned out a great weekend full of my favorite things, keeping each one a surprise until it happened. I've always told him, given the choice, I'd take experiences over gifts, and so that's what I got this year. Well, I got some gifts, too, but I'll certainly remember the weekend longer than the things I received. That's the thing about memories. You get to keep those with you. They don't get thrown into the donation pile at the end of the year. They don't stop fitting or go out of style. Memories stay when the tangible things go, and as we shared a delicious dinner on Saturday night, that was the topic of conversation.
"If you could re-live one day of your life, what would it be?" He immediately said I couldn't choose our wedding day because he knew that would be it. And he was right, so that made the question harder. One day? I've lived roughly 10,950 days of life. How am I supposed to pick just one? Impossible. And so I told him that when I thought about days I'd re-live, it would be because I wanted to do them differently. Days that I made a mistake, messed up, said something I wish I could take back, or made a fool of myself. I'd like a second chance at those days. I'd like to do them better. But life only gives us one day at a time, and since we can't go back, we just have to learn and move forward.
And that's exactly what I've spent the last decade of my life learning. Because I can tell you that years ago, I said things like, "I don't like the way my life is playing out. This isn't how I thought my life would be." I spent a lot of time feeling frustrated and discouraged because things weren't going as I had hoped and imagined. I felt stuck. I felt like a failure. I was so unhappy that I didn't even realize I was unhappy. I was disappointed in myself, full of regret. And as God began slowly chipping away at the life I had built on my own, I began learning that I couldn't undo what I had done. I couldn't go back and change the decisions I had made. I couldn't redo a single one of them. But I could do things differently going forward. I had nothing but blank pages ahead of me, and so I wasn't stuck. I wasn't a failure. I was just a fraction of the way through my estimated life span, and it wasn't too late to turn this ship around and get it back on course. His course, that is.
So if I could go back and re-live a day, I suppose I really wouldn't. Because each of those days, even the really hard ones, the ones when I made bad decisions or did things I'd like to change, got me to the point I'm at today. God used each of those 10,950 days to get me right here, to mold me into the woman I've become, to teach me, to refine me, and to use me. I needed every day. I'm thankful that He faithfully got me through each day. And when I look back over my life as a whole, those hard, dark, challenging, difficult days hardly compare to the number of fantastic days I've had. It's not even close!
The twenties were good to me. Better than the teens, no doubt! They were most challenging decade for sure, but they were also my most rewarding. Full of change, of ups and downs. Of sorrows and joys and every emotion in between. But I'm glad to see them come to an end. Glad to have lived that chapter to its fullest and turn the page. Because I hear it only gets better. And with a book full of blank pages and God who authors amazing stories, I look forward to seeing what the next decade has in store.
Aaron did a fantastic job of making my thirtieth birthday fun and memorable. He planned out a great weekend full of my favorite things, keeping each one a surprise until it happened. I've always told him, given the choice, I'd take experiences over gifts, and so that's what I got this year. Well, I got some gifts, too, but I'll certainly remember the weekend longer than the things I received. That's the thing about memories. You get to keep those with you. They don't get thrown into the donation pile at the end of the year. They don't stop fitting or go out of style. Memories stay when the tangible things go, and as we shared a delicious dinner on Saturday night, that was the topic of conversation.
"If you could re-live one day of your life, what would it be?" He immediately said I couldn't choose our wedding day because he knew that would be it. And he was right, so that made the question harder. One day? I've lived roughly 10,950 days of life. How am I supposed to pick just one? Impossible. And so I told him that when I thought about days I'd re-live, it would be because I wanted to do them differently. Days that I made a mistake, messed up, said something I wish I could take back, or made a fool of myself. I'd like a second chance at those days. I'd like to do them better. But life only gives us one day at a time, and since we can't go back, we just have to learn and move forward.
And that's exactly what I've spent the last decade of my life learning. Because I can tell you that years ago, I said things like, "I don't like the way my life is playing out. This isn't how I thought my life would be." I spent a lot of time feeling frustrated and discouraged because things weren't going as I had hoped and imagined. I felt stuck. I felt like a failure. I was so unhappy that I didn't even realize I was unhappy. I was disappointed in myself, full of regret. And as God began slowly chipping away at the life I had built on my own, I began learning that I couldn't undo what I had done. I couldn't go back and change the decisions I had made. I couldn't redo a single one of them. But I could do things differently going forward. I had nothing but blank pages ahead of me, and so I wasn't stuck. I wasn't a failure. I was just a fraction of the way through my estimated life span, and it wasn't too late to turn this ship around and get it back on course. His course, that is.
So if I could go back and re-live a day, I suppose I really wouldn't. Because each of those days, even the really hard ones, the ones when I made bad decisions or did things I'd like to change, got me to the point I'm at today. God used each of those 10,950 days to get me right here, to mold me into the woman I've become, to teach me, to refine me, and to use me. I needed every day. I'm thankful that He faithfully got me through each day. And when I look back over my life as a whole, those hard, dark, challenging, difficult days hardly compare to the number of fantastic days I've had. It's not even close!
The twenties were good to me. Better than the teens, no doubt! They were most challenging decade for sure, but they were also my most rewarding. Full of change, of ups and downs. Of sorrows and joys and every emotion in between. But I'm glad to see them come to an end. Glad to have lived that chapter to its fullest and turn the page. Because I hear it only gets better. And with a book full of blank pages and God who authors amazing stories, I look forward to seeing what the next decade has in store.
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