Thirty

i have been thinking about turning thirty a lot lately. it seems to pop into my head on a daily basis as much as i wish it would remain buried in my unconscious until i can at least ease my shock and dismay with some really good chocolate chocolate cake. i just can't believe that my twenties have flown by so incredibly quickly.

as i have moved forward in other stages of my life, i've always been ready. i was ready for each school move. i was ready to graduate high school, so ready in fact that i had no desire to look back, even long enough to pick up my senior yearbook. amusingly, when i finally went, the only other yearbook remaining belonged to a classmate who was behind bars. i was ready to move to campus, the hell out of the dorms, and into an apartment with a roommate. i was so ready to flee my undergrad experience (granted, it did take me five years) that i didn't even attend graduation (granted, with former president bush as the speaker and snipers reportedly visible from all the places i love and hate at the ohio state university, with post 9-11 fear in the air, i could even convince my family that it wasn't worth their time and binoculars to see me handed a degree). i was ready to leave the nest and step out on my very own, both in mansfield and later here. i left both of my other grown up jobs without a twinge of regret, excitedly moving up the unglamourous lab tech ladder.

my twenties feel different. they so weren't what i expected. i haven't accomplished what i dreamed and while i (think i) know in my (still disappointed) heart of hearts that my dream wasn't meant to be, it feels like i may never be permitted access to what follows because of it. does that even make sense? i didn't go to vet school, didn't graduate, didn't marry an adorable and rational vet boy who would understand all the crazy that comes with the DVM title and keep me from bringing home an entire zoo of neglecteds, so i can't move on to the happy-ever-after phase. instead, i am glued to the step before the vet school phase. i didn't have the step before written on my pretty plan (in perfect penmanship on lined, unwrinkled paper, of course) so i didn't expect it to be THIS. THIS is apparently long yet very short, possibly unending years in a tiny condo watching everyone else move on to the after phase (i absolutely admit that some don't seem to have been granted the happily ever part) while i just wait.

it's not that i'm not busy. work & school & volunteering & family & friends & the gym wear me out. i look foward to bedtime and i am never ready for the alarm to ring, especially in these cold days of winter. i go through the motions of this life with a smile on my face more often than not, quickly moving on to new months and years in my calender, but sometimes i am just overwhelmed with a crashing wave of discontent and worry that THIS will last forever.

i think that's what bothers me most about my twenties being gone. it's not just the grey hairs and the fact that my mother insists that "now that you're older [if you were struck by a car in a crosswalk or threw yourself off your bike into the middle of high street again] you probably would break [all] your bones". it's the realization that the rest of the big stages aren't necessarily inevitable whether i'm ready or not, yet the years will flash before my eyes faster than i can appreciate them.