Day #78 - Thirty

Oh to be 30 again...I remember when I turned 30 years old thinking my life had not turned out like it was supposed to. When I was 15 years old I was babysitting a neighbor's kids on New Years Eve writing in my journal after the kids were put to bed, watching the ball drop in New York on TV. I wrote that I would be 26 in the year 2000. I would probably have 3 or 4 kids by then and would be a stay at home Mom and some other 15 year old would be babysitting my kids while my husband and I went out to party like it was 1999...

By the time I turned 30 I figured out life doesn't always turn out how I plan for it to. The year of 30 was a lot of "if only's, what if's, I should have's" and so on. If nothing else the year of 30 taught me to just "be". I don't mean not to have goals or make plans, but to "be" where I "am". It is ok that my life is different than I pictured it would be and it isn't wrong because it didn't turn out as planned; life has turned out pretty great.

Tonight all my siblings in town, their spouses, Mom and Dad met to celebrate Chuck's 30th Birthday. Travis and I were the first one's there, Mom & Dad picked up Chuck who was on time for once and the others had a babysitting crisis and they were 30 minutes late. Lot's of things accumulated to play back like a video in my mind - I will try to articulate it quickly and hope it makes sense:

* While we were waiting for the others to get there Dad mentioned for some reason that he has had a wonderful life - no regrets, just blessings.
* Chuck and I talked the other day about turning 30 and how he is not where he thought he would be
* Josie (big brother Jason's daughter) is the babysitter watching the younger cousin's - she is 15
* When we stood up to walk out of the restaurant in a big Dana hoard I thought of my Aunts and Uncles on the Strong side of the family and how they looked to me when they were young parents working their way into their 40's.

I'm not really sure where I am taking this post other then to say isn't the circle of life amazing and interesting and unexpected. The whole night was representative of a whole cycle to me.

I wish...I hope...I love...I Am...

CHUCK - 30 is GREAT - wherever you are in your life.

I Am Grateful,
HB

Diva Quote: "Where one door closes another door opens; but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us." Alexander Graham Bell

Photos of the Party...low light and camera phone...Oh Well.