This is 30

A massive, huge and ginormous thank you for all the birthday love yesterday, it was greatly appreciated! We spent yesterday getting a new cast for Sky's leg, dropping some serious dough on all new kitchen appliances (#adulting), had a little shopping trip at the mall and then out for dinner and drinks. It was just us two. Nothing elaborate, just us, enjoying time together. 

It.Was.Perfect.

I had a video edited to go up yesterday recapping the last 10 years but sometimes words are better read than heard. And sometimes it's the opposite, but this time I wasn't feeling the video I created.

I turned thirty yesterday. 

And turning 30 is not something we should fear. We should be excited, thrilled that we’ve gotten this far. As recent events have given us any indication that sometimes getting to thirty isn't promised to everyone.

I think there’s a stigma attached with age and status.

That we should be doing this or having that by a certain age.

And that’s just not reasonable to think that way; it will drive a person crazy.

10 years ago if you asked me where I thought I’d be I’m not sure I really knew.

I was a 20 year old girl in college with a long distance relationship, 18 credit hours every semester and working three jobs just to get by. 

I was pretty sure I knew what adulting felt and looked like at that point in life.

I thought by 30 I'd probably have kids; possibly married.

I never could have imagined it would look like this.

It's better than I thought.

My 20’s were learning years.

They were hard years, but fun years too.

I trucked through years of a separation turned divorce of my parents and a selling of my childhood home. I came home far less then most college kids; home just didn’t feel right to me.

I threw myself into work, school and Jer.

I learned that working three jobs and going to college full-time was exhausting.

School has always been extremely hard for me. No matter how hard I studied and prepared I never seemed to come out on top.

I doubted my ability to graduate college on a daily basis.

But some how I did.

...barely.

Upon gradation I had no direction of where I wanted to go or what I wanted to "be".

I moved home and I had a internship I worked for free 4 days a week along with 2 paid jobs. I moved in with Jerek and his family and while I was forever grateful for the hospitality I ultimately felt so lost in life.

I broke up with Jerek and moved to California thinking it would help me find myself.

I had no direction left in me, like a compass spinning aimlessly.

I learned that sometimes you need to lose yourself in order to find yourself.

So I packed up my things and ended up moving back home.

A few months later we reconnected and he gave me another chance.

It was what I was looking for the entire time.

Something I had all along but was so lost and plagued by life events I was blinded by it all.

He was my rock. The foundation to my being. He was that last puzzle piece that you thought you lost under the table 

but some how you found it.

A puzzle complete, a smile on your face.

I told my mom I was pregnant on my 25th birthday.

I still didn’t have that career like everyone thought they’d have after college graduation.

We welcomed Tracen into our world a month early and with huge hearts. The NICU tested our ability to think clearly but we managed to get through it.

We started 2011 with a new baby.

We had more bills and less money than we ever had but we were so happy...we had each other.

We both worked multiple jobs to ensure the best life we could have together.

This got us into our careers we have now.

At 26 I had a miscarriage. 

One week I feared what having 2 under 2 would look like and the next everything was just...gone.

Fear was replaced with sorrow.

Finding the silver lining seemed almost impossible.

I had just turned 27 and then Skylor was born. It was life changing.

Joy was restored after heartache the year before.

Our careers have been on an incline over the last few years and we managed to scrounge up some money and buy our first home together.

A home that feels so good to be in every morning that I open my eyes. Something I haven't felt in a very long time. I've moved every single year since I was 17, I was use to the change. 

So what's next. 

I keep asking myself that very question.

I think my 30’s will be better than my 20’s, in the sense that I’ve gone through a lot of the tough learning stuff already.

But in my 20’s I brought 2 lives into this world and got married...topping that is going to be hard.

In my 30’s I want to travel more. a lot more.

I want to practice patience, lord knows I’ll need when the teen age years hit me.

I want to cook more, be better about what is going into my body.

I want to pay down or better yet pay OFF debt. 

Debt holds you back from living life.

I want to keep dating Jerek. The moment you stop, is the moment you forget why you started.

But most importantly I just want to be present in the moment.

In the day

the hour

in every second. 

Stop saying some day and make today that day.

Cheers to the next ten years.