"In my next thirty years..."

Today I am 30. This birthday is, of course, like any other. One year has passed since the last birthday; I am a year older. And yet it has been a momentous year. My family has grown -- my immediate family through a birth, my extended family through weddings. My career and my husband's have taken on new direction and, soon, new geography. I have, with my husband, acquired things -- a car, soon a house.

But naturally, this birthday is not like any other. It is a decade. I am old enough now to have a career, not just a job. I have friends from not just after college, but one or two moves after college. I have lived long enough to have shared now nearly a third of my life with my husband. This year, I am a mom.

Every year on my birthday, my mom reminds me of the story of my birth -- the laboring in a rocking chair while waiting for my dad to come home from flying, asking my brothers which they wanted -- a brother or a sister, arriving at the hospital with little time to spare before delivery. This year, I have a story, too. The laboring in a rocking chair while waiting for Wes to come home from his shift, arriving at the hospital with very little time to spare before delivery. This year, I am the mom with the stroller and dog on a leash, not the pregnant woman strolling along the lake, peering into stroller wondering what it will be like. I am the working mom trying to figure out how to balance career and home, job and husband and child, school work and housework.

So many milestones in my life happened in my 20s -- graduating college, living and traveling overseas, working my first few jobs, marrying my husband, having a baby. And yet I have to believe my 30s will not be completely barren. I hope to have more kids (yes, plural). I hope to get another degree and use it to advance my career. I hope to make a home and meet friends with whom to share this time of my life.

I am not where I thought I would be at 30. When I was younger -- much younger (can I say that now?) -- I thought by 30 I would be married for closer to 10 years than 5, be done having kids instead of starting, "be" what I wanted to "be" when I grew up. And yet I'm finding that I know so many things better now. If I'd married earlier, I'd probably have married the wrong guy. If I were done having kids, I probably wouldn't have the career I do or be as comfortable as I am in what I want in the future in terms of kids and career. And even though I'm still not sure what I want to "be," I know at least how I want to be and what I want to do.

I hope, come 40, that I can look at this post and see as much hope and promise in my 40s as I do in my 30s.

"Lord have mercy on my next thirty years..."