Monday, February 02, 2009

Gratitude Post - 2 of 12

My goal in these monthly posts is to reflect specifically on what I am grateful for from the previous month, not just generalities, and as I look at my January and what it gave to me, I see a definite theme, and I realize that I am becoming grateful for something that I would rather not have had just a few short months ago. As February begins, I am grateful for the stage I am arriving at in my life, one of age and a little experience, one of being settled into a certain steady routine, one of reliable comfort.

Just last week, we celebrated Scott’s 30th birthday with some friends and family, and I’m forced to think about what 30 actually means, or what it used to represent to me and what it means now. I am only 2 short years behind him, but I often still think of myself as 22. College certainly doesn’t feel like 6 years ago, and I resemble, in no way, what I once expected 30 to feel like. Truth be known, I’ve sort of been fighting this growing-older thing, and resenting what I thought it meant: limited chances, hard choices, too many bills, the same scenery forever. Only recently have I realized that age and experience has more than monotony to offer, and I am opening up to the idea that life doesn’t end when you settle in one place, but perhaps you give yourself permission to start a few things.

While we haven’t talked about it a lot, there was a chance, a very good one, that Scott’s company would have us moving somewhere new, actually somewhere far far away and new and exciting and all of the things you crave when you are nearing 30 and don’t want to be. Only this month did we find out that the adventure on the horizon won’t be happening any time soon. (Thank you, global recession.) That weekend consisted of far too many tears and glasses of cabernet, and then I realized that there are many things to be grateful for, even if I stay in this place the rest of my life.

We are lucky enough to have a house that we love, and it feels more like home with every passing month as we settle in and make improvements here and there. In the last month, I am grateful for welcoming the baby of a close college friend, celebrating Scott’s 30th, enjoying a family dinner or two with my sister and her growing family, and finally furnishing the ever-empty dining room we’d been staring at for the past 4 years. All of these moments come from the age, experience, and reliability that I am only coming to know in recent years. So perhaps the looming 3-0 around the bend isn’t so much a funeral for the years that have passed but a christening for what is to come.