30 in four days.

I’ll be 30 in four days.

I have been traveling the internet reading everything from lists of things one should do before completing their 29th year to how they will feel when they’re 30 and what they have learned up to this point. Everyone seems to have an opinion about this milestone. And I’d be lying if I didn’t say that it is freaking me out a little and causing me to take a knee in life and rethink. I am not planning any huge changes or anything. Just taking stock.

Like in Annie Get Your Gun……”What do I find? The things I’ve got will keep me satisfied.”

What I want to know is, why 30? What is it about this particular number/age? I know we are saying goodbye to our 20s; a decade of free thinking and the ability to still be kids. We are saying goodbye to blaming things on our youth and inexperience. We are saying goodbye to having all the time in the world to do anything we want and anything we can. We are saying goodbye to being the youngest person in the room.

But we are saying hello to stable thinking with a free-will and solid foundation. We are saying hello an adult take on life and the respect that comes with it. We are saying hello to the confidence to not have to blame our actions on anything or anyone. Yes, I did get drunk and pass out in the club. Yes, I did completely forget to tell the boss about the time change for the meeting. Yes, I did date someone else because I realized that I don’t want to be with you anymore. There are many things we are no longer willing or able to cover up. Why would I want to?

Confidence is a big one. At this phase of life I am just as confused about where I want to be and what I want to do as I was 5 years ago. I know that I can’t really put off babies and a family as long as I keep saying I want to. Ten years made sense at 22. Now 10 years just seems like I’m tempting fate and trying to cheat biology. And maybe that means I really don’t want kids. And that’s okay too. I have learned that it is something I would embrace if it happened and will accept if it doesn’t. It’s not a goal either way. I am just as lost about a career and where I am supposed to develop myself as I was at 25. But I know that I want to buy a house in the next five years. So the lifestyle I have been living isn’t going to work for much longer. Not many people I know can buy a house and do the upkeep living on the $25,000 I sometimes make in a year. I want a dog so the traveling has to be figured out.

All the changes and the confusions I had at 25 I still have. The biggest difference is that at 30 I am totally fine with it. At 25 I was just trying to be happy and trust the universe will take care of me and make it okay. At 30 I KNOW the universe is on my side and I KNOW I will be okay. I have the confidence from deep within me. Confidence that only age and time and experience can bring.

2008 was not a good year for me. It was the biggest rollercoaster I have ever ridden. And it’s not over. But I see my birthday as the start of something new, even if the calendar doesn’t agree. Loosing my father still breaks my heart every day. I have not dealt with it at all and the enormous breakdown I had last night proves that. I have no idea what the next phase of my life is going to be. None. And that’s a little scary. I can barely get to Friday. But I do know that the next phase will come. Some things are just inevitable.

Cause with the sun in the morning and the moon in the evening, I’m alright.

A hole in my heart

I am still smacked in the face every day by my father’s death. I was just walking through the office where I am temping and was hit with the realization again. And it still hits like a physical pain. A startled reminder that he is no longer with me. It knocks the wind out of me and takes me a minute to readjust and keep moving forward.

I miss him every day. I miss him more with every breath. It is hard and painful and isn’t getting any easier.

I am noticing other little changes. I cannot stand plans changing anymore. I want to know where everyone is and what they’re doing. And if they change it without me knowing I get really bothered. Bothered to the point of tears sometimes. This morning my trainer told me he had booked my hour with him to someone else. I almost cried. Except my gut reaction is anger. Anything that messes with the status quo is met with anger as the first reaction. I’m not sure why. I don’t like being told no. I don’t like when things are changed and I don’t like not knowing what is going on.

I also have no patience for people. I want people to make a decision and go with it. No hemming or hawing. No wondering about anything. Just decide and move on. Get out of the road and out of my way if you're not going to drive intelligently. I am a horrible procrastinator and all I want to do is sit and be with my family and friends.

Each day is showing me something new that I cannot understand. I cry more. I am not remembering big things like holidays or momentous things with my dad. I’m remembering the small things, the minutia of the days, that are continuing to throw me. I don’t know why I thought that everything would work out and I would be fine by now. I don’t know why I am forcing myself to get through this. Apparently now is the time I am going to work through the anger of my father. Because I’m just mad and on a short fuse and don’t know how to right it.

I wonder how he would have voted today. I’m sure we would have had hour long conversations about the president and making fun of Palin and arguing about who was right. He would have given his take on the different props and made me see a different way to look at them. He had an amazing ability to shake my foundation and what I thought was the right way to see things. It would have been some great debating.

There is a huge hole in my heart right now. Has been for a while. And I am really not sure how to fill it. And maybe it never gets filled. But I feel it like it’s a physical part of me that is gone and nothing is fixing it. And I’m sad a lot more. And I’m angry. And I miss him.