My man.  He was the best part of my twenties. I love getting older with him.

I’m turning thirty on Friday.  Three-zero.  It feels like a big milestone, leaving my twenties.  I think culture has always made me believe that all the things happen in your twenties so I had better live it up and enjoy the decade for all its worth.  I’m not sure I did that.  I’m also not sure that I didn’t. Bloggers the world over have created list after list of things you just have to do in your twenties or you have missed out on life— I’ve read a lot of these things and I would say I’m about three for twenty-five on most of them.  But I don’t feel like I’ve missed out on life.  Actually, I can tell you with all honestly that the twenty-nine year old version of myself is a hundred times happier with who she is than the twenty-three year old.  Maybe a thousand times happier.  And Lord knows it’s not because I’m skinnier or prettier or more successful.  Ha, that is laughable.  Let me compare- on paper- the two:

At twenty-three I was rocking the graduate student title in one of the best programs in the country (pride, much?).  I unashamedly spent at least a hundred dollars a month at starbucks, sixty on my acrylic nails, and got my hair done every other month on the dot.  Friends, I wore business casual every day.  With heels when I was really feeling it.  I went to happy hour with co-workers each week and to the gym almost daily.  I had my own schedule and only a handful of bills to pay.  I was single and terrible at flirting but I did try.  And I wrapped up that season with a masters degree and a resume I was really proud of.

At twenty-nine I have grown, birthed and nursed two babies and I go to the gym… well, I think went sometime this month but only because my friend Emily made me… so my body is hardly in tip-top shape.  I left a great job to stay home with my kids, and although I have loved teaching a class or two since leaving full-time work, my resume is being sustained by the grip of a fingernail, not built.  I feel guilty every time I buy any latte because four dollars buys a whole pack of wipes.  And I can’t talk about my hair, it’s just too painful. 

Twenty-three wins on paper.  But you know, no one could pay me enough to go back to twenty-three, because so much of that piece of my life was riddled with things that do not get put on paper. Twenty-three was probably the most insecure I had ever been.  I tried to control this with nails and hair and buying new clothes with my credit card but it was all a façade.  Or there’s the fact that I was so desperate to meet the right guy that I cried and cried and waited for and made excuses for the wrong guy for almost two years.  I look back now at the heart grip the wrong guy had on me and I can only shake my head; but at the time, no one could have talked me out of it, out of him.  Until circumstances and divine intervention finally did, and then I met the right guy and went “Oh my gosh, I almost missed out on THIS!”  I did feel “accomplished” at twenty-three but here’s the truth: the two little people I spend the most time with are very unimpressed with accomplishments, but they need me.  Gosh, it is such a precious gift to be needed.  I like it so much more than being accomplished.

I never backpacked through Europe or moved to a big city.  I never had a “night life” or got familiar with any bar scene in any place I lived in.  I never did a lot of things twenty-somethings “should” do.  And I would still say I’m going in to thirty really happy.  And without many regrets—I do think the regrets I have are more about what I’ve done that I’m not proud of than what didn’t do. I’m learning that growing up is more about making a life than about making a list.  And I think making a life is all about learning, growing, giving, and seeing yourself less and less as you see others more and more.

I am going in to my thirties seeing more.  I see my husband who is such a joy to love to and serve every day because he does those things for me a hundred times more.  I see my babies who make it impossible to think of myself all day long.  I see my friends who are more like family by now, and I see their babies who I love as my own.  And I see my community, the people hurting right around me.  Once you see, you can’t un-see.  But that has been the best part of getting a bit older.  It is amazingly refreshing knowing what a small part I play in the world, but knowing that God has given me roles to fill that only I can: a beautiful paradox.  I feel like I spent many years just wanting to be seen, and it is an exhausting way to live.  But then I fell in love with a real Jesus and realized I am seen, and its really only his view that matters.

I am less of an athlete and less of career woman and less of a lot things now.  But I am more of who God made me to be.  Not perfect, and I certainly haven’t arrived anywhere in life worth noting.  But I can honestly say older is better, more sure, more free.  I can’t wait for thirty.  (And I’ll write about forty when I get there, but I do know a few kick-a** forty year olds who I would be so proud to be like.)  One day at a time though, right?  Here’s to being brave and seeing ourselves less.