Thirty-Something...Really?

My knees hurt. I don't think it's fair. My hip hurts too, just one though. I'm 33 years old as of 8 days ago. I don't think that I am supposed to be feeling this way without having first had children. All of my life I've been under the delusion that it was the coming of children that made the hips spread, the knees go bad, the hair go gray, and excess weight attach itself. It's the physical act of procreation that brings gravity into full effect and slows down our metabolism. If I had but looked around I would have noticed the lie right away, but who looks around when you are an indestructible teenager with her whole life planned out?

As it turns out my life had plans of it's own and it quite successfully put gravity into effect without the childbearing step. I have no children and I still have wider hips, bad knees, and more poundage than I feel necessary. I don't really know if I have any gray hair since I dye it. On my 31st birthday I got up and ran 5 miles just to prove to myself that I still could. Thirty-one had a more devastating effect on me than 30 ever did. Thirty was a milestone, something that everyone talked about with fear and dread. In fact it was hyped up so much that it was kind of a disappointment. I'm not sure what I expected, perhaps dark clouds hovering ominously in the sky, a personification of death standing at the foot of my bed holding a scythe, a face full of wrinkles to appear immediately letting myself and also everyone around know that I was in fact older. It was nothing like that. I was still a newly wed and I felt pretty darn good. But 31 was horrible. It hit me quite abruptly the morning of my birthday that getting older doesn't stop. Aging will proceed whether we are ready for it or not! I was devastated, which is why I got up and ran. I wanted to stay young and free and full of vitality! Why I had just barely begun to live right?

I also used to live under the delusion that "if I couldn't have kids then dang it, I would be sexy!" I still am sexy, but only to my husband (thank the heavens for him!) and older men with bad eyesight.

It's the delusional life that gets the better of me more times than I like to recall. The "imaginary relationships with real people" the "denial of my pant size, dang it I will fit into these again" the "it doesn't matter if I'm not where I thought I would be, I really am happy". It's the last one that gets me the most. Perhaps it's because it's the line I feed myself so often. How can we be truly happy when we measure ourselves against a ruler that was created in the all-so-knowing years of high school? Who said that was the measuring stick of life? It's time for a change. Throw the old one out and make a new one. One that fits, one that's real. One that's flexible. Who really knows what the future brings but God? Perhaps instead of creating my own measuring stick, I should try harder to understand the one that God has for me.