Chapter 30 - appreciation

Chapter 30

I think I'll call this phase in my life chapter 30. I can't even begin to think about how many different chapters that I've been through. Places I've lived, jobs I've had, people I've known and come to un-know.

I will be turning 30 in 3 1/2 months. I LOVE birthdays. It's such a fun day to celebrate someone in your life or yourself and while I have really enjoyed the last 29 birthdays of mine, I never much felt different then the year prior. I always felt like the day came and went and it was fun and then we continued on tomorrow; but I feel really excited about turning 30.

My 20s were a mess. An absolute mess. I remember my 20th birthday. I was sitting in a giant room in Kuwait with about 400 other soldiers. I was on my way home for my 2 week R&R from my deployment in Iraq and something happened where we got hung up and couldn't leave on time. We were supposed to fly out the day prior and I think our plane broke. On May 17th we sat in our passenger bus on the tarmac of the airport in Kuwait for about 12 hours, after spending an entire day out processing,  We slowly became more and more aware that we were not going anywhere that day as we all exited the bus for a smoke late in the night. Some friends that I made (cause that's what happens when your sitting rather close to 40 other people for 12 hours) knew it was my birthday and when the clock struck midnight they all sang me happy birthday in the middle of the desert. We drove the hour and half back to the customs holding room, and I spent that birthday watching movies on my laptop and eating MREs with my huge green backpack as a pillow.

I think that day sums up my 20s pretty well. Disorganized with nothing going the way it was supposed to, yet full of memories, friends, and experiences I will never forget; although many I may want to.

Turning 30 seems pretty significant. If you have followed my blog at all you may know that within about 6 months time my husband and I were both laid off from our jobs, and we landed in the basement of my in-laws basement with 2 children and 1 on the way. I've been through a lot of ups and downs, but these 5 months were some of the most desperate and life changing I have ever been through. A form of rock bottom that I never want to experience ever again.

During this time I really figured out who I was on the inside. I'd like to write a little more about that time of self discovery in another post in detail, because I feel like it was an important change, but for the most part I figured out what type of wife and mother I want to be, as well as what type of person I want to be, and my priorities with my life.

Maybe I'll call the next chapter of my life appreciation. I've lived with a lot and I've lived with nothing. But these times of thriving and not have always been a self made choice. I had chosen to downsize, or had chosen to move or chosen to leave a job or take one. But this time my choices were taken from me, and I had to live within my circumstances and means under somebody else's home as an adult and a mother. While my living situation was needed and appreciated at a time where I needed the help, it took my out of my comfort zone in ways nothing in my thrill seeking life had.

The past 5 months have been somewhat of a condensed metaphor of the past 10 years really. I mentioned a few weeks back that I was waiting in limbo for all the marbles of my life to drop. I knew it would happen, I just didn't know when or where or even how but I knew that things were changing.

It was intense, because that is exactly what happened last Saturday. All the marbles fell and our phone rang at 4pm and said be ready to rock at 5; and everything that we were working so hard for feel into place. I was finally out of the waiting place.

My page has turned and I am ready to fill it with words. Beautiful, strong, life seeking, mature words.