I just can't wait...!

I had all these good intentions to write an exciting blog entry, and then I got consumed in almost a stasis of hibernation while winter has been dragging on. There have even been spectacular snow days, and I still didn’t write anything.

If you haven’t guessed by now, there’s little hope for me ever being a serial blogger. Not that that’s a goal of mine.

Anyway… so yeah! That blog I was going to write

In the last entry about exiting my 20s, I mentioned that I thought it’d be cool to go see the Lion King for my 30^th birthday but decided against asking for tickets. Instead, I thought it more practical to ask for new glasses. Which I totally got. Check ‘em out:

… Just kidding. This is what I actually got.

I decided that I wanted something different from what I had before, and this was the result. I’m used to thicker framed glasses, so for the first week of wearing these babies I felt like I was looking at someone else in the mirror. In some crazy way, I attached part of my visual identity to “artsier” glasses. This was completely unexpected, and I’ve since gotten over it and love my new glasses on my face as much as I do off of my face. Although it’s very awesome that I have new specs, GUESS WHAT:

BAM!!

Remember how I mentioned that I told my husband to plan everything for my 30^th birthday? And I was really anxious about if he was going to do anything at all? Yeah, he totally wins the gold in joining forces with friends in surprising me not just with a grown-up-version of a Lion King party – which is really awesome on its own – but ALSO  tickets to see the Lion King. Which we are going to go see TOMORROW.

 WOOHOO!

Okay. Perhaps I’m disproportionately excited to see the Lion King as a 30 year old woman, but you have to understand that the Lion King was my favorite Disney film as a kid. I like to think I was busting through stereotypes without even knowing it, because though I may have liked the typical princess films I never really got into them. I was into 101 Dalmations, Aristrocats,  The Rescuers and Rescuers Down Under, and non-Disney films featuring animal characters. I was also extremely into Big Cats when the Lion King came out, so of course it was my favorite and holds a special place in my heart. But along with that, I'm also super pumped to see the costume and set designs. From what I’ve heard, the sheer artistry put into the show is pretty amazing and I want to have all my senses full present to drink it all in. Since I’ve been making stuffed animals, I hope the show will be inspiring on that end and feed into my creativity. 

I have to admit, though. I will probably cry. Especially when Mufasa dies, because even just listening to the music that accompanies the whole wildebeest scene tears me up. Seriously. And I may cry anyway out of sheer joy in going to see my first ever Broadway production.

Can't wait!

The Three-Oh: Part Deux

I figured that, since I wrote about my Bucket List of 30 things to do before I turn 31, I may as well write some reflections on turning 30 because Lord knows that hasn't been done before. That and I tend to get all contemplative when my birthday rolls around in part because it also happens to be 8 days into the New Year, when folks are all abuzz about reflections on last year and resolution about the next.

Normally I don't make any big deal about birthdays, at least not my own. Since my birthday is in the winter, it inevitably fell during Winter Break during high school and college when many of my friends weren't even around. I'm also an introvert, so a great birthday party to me looks like hanging around with a handful of friends and watching a movie or playing games. Or going to a museum or similar institution. Case in point: I wanted to go to the Franklin Institute in Philly on my 16th birthday, the Earth and Space Museum in NYC on my 21st birthday, and two years ago I wanted to go to the Baltimore Aquarium. This year I would have liked to break the mold by going to see the theater production of The Lion King in NYC, but those tickets just crazy expensive so I felt all weird about asking for something that didn't have any practical use. Instead I'll be getting something much more insane: a new pair of glasses. I know, I'm totally living on the edge. All you extroverts can't handle this.

Additionally I threw the planning for my birthday into the capable hands of my husband and friends, and told them to make it a surprise. The lesson learned here is that combined with my winter blues, letting my friends decide my 30th birthday fate has led to bouts of subtle anxiety and thinking that nothing will be done to celebrate because my birthday doesn't really matter. This is actually the result of my birthday being during Winter Breaks, and self-inflicted scars from my young teenaged brain thinking most friends didn't come to my birthday invitations because they didn't care. As an adult, I know better, and soon enough my insecurity gets coaxed out of the dark and told to breathe into a paper bag. I'm sure whatever is planned for me will be awesome and fun.

Anyway, this post was supposed to be about turning another year older and not about birthdays past.

I'm about to turn 30. There is no pandemonium, panic, or worlds falling apart. Turning 30 is not this looming cliff I'm about to fall off of from youthful radiance into a pit of old age. Seriously guys, that's just buying into what fashion magazines and cosmetic plastic surgeons exploit: fear of aging. I suppose I've always thrown a proverbial middle finger up at that noise and I don't see it suddenly stopping any time soon, as I have always felt that 30 was decidedly not old and not that big a deal. But when I think about it just a little more, I guess it is a little more than "just another birthday."

The good part is that I'm looking forward to getting out of my 20s because for some reason, that will make me feel more like an adult. You'd think that living apart from my parents after college and getting married at 24 would have set the adult status in stone. It helped, but for some reason, exiting my 20s seems like the real initiation into adulthood. Nope. I don't know why. Perhaps it's that I think that in my 30s, I will finally have figured out what I'm doing with my life or at the very least have a pretty good idea of the direction we should be going. That we won't keep falling off the horse in attempts to get stable (no puns intended there). I know it's not a magic potion to make everything right in the world. I'm pretty sure crazy things happen without irregardless of age, and I probably won't have everything figured out either. Besides, God has certainly provided and carried both my husband and I through the various ups and downs through my 20s. Perhaps a good exercise would be for me to come up with a list of ways that God provided and what I'm grateful for from my 20s. It might offer some great perspective. A list of 30 seems too limiting, but it seems fitting. Who's with me?

If you are 30 and beyond, or not there yet, how do you feel about it? Did you ever feel snubbed as a teenager because your birthday was during a month when most kids are on vacation? (there's gotta be more people out there besides me that felt that way)