stuck in the middle (with you)

there is a fine line between old and young, and yet a disturbingly large lull of time spent 'in the middle'. as i come up on my 30th birthday, despite having always claimed it to be a ridiculous practice, i've been doing some mild to moderate pondering over the major (and not so major) happenings in my life. i'm beginning to feel older i suppose, but certainly not in the 'i don't think 'poop' is a funny word' sort of way; that sense of maturity will perhaps always escape me. stating that i feel more mature seems very ironically immature to me; but i'm going to be 30 after all. surely i have lived some life.

even though i am for whatever reason, in a way drawn to teen aged people and feel fairly convicted in teaching them 'someday', i completely understand why the large majority of the public does not, in fact 'get' high school kids. now that i'm entering that early-middle part of my journey i can look back at my own high school experience, shrug & laugh. it kind of makes me chuckle a little now, writing about remembering things like very serious cheerleading rivalries with other schools, not very seriously copying someone else's math homework, and quasi-seriously writing other people's papers (never for money, just because...). i can see it now for the role it played in my life, accept that i knew inherently that i would never do anything for which i would need to excel in algebra (1 or 2 for the record), and feel overall pretty good about the whole period. i know that it is not that way for many people, and i acknowledge that things that go on during these years FEEL incredibly important and life consuming. i haven't yet lost that reoccurring nightmare of not having done any of my homework all semester long and yadda yadda yadda. but let me make it well known, you could not pay me to go back there. the words 'best years of my life' have not and will not fall from my lips--ever. it was great, it was a very ideal high school experience. but it was not life, not really. not as me. i probably haven't changed that much since high school, in terms of my sense of humor or my core values. but in so many other ways i've changed heaps.

i do not gossip. i didn't really gossip that much when i was younger, definitely something i can thank my parents for. my mom always told my brothers and me that we 'may be the only person who is nice to someone their whole day, and being nice to them may the one thing that keeps them alive'. she has always encouraged us to include everyone, even when it's not the popular thing to do. and my dad told us to mind our own business, and to mind...our own...business. it is something i tell my own kids now when they're asking why the kid in the next aisle over at walmart is crying, 'it doesn't involve you, worry about yourself'. and together they taught us that when someone does come to you, and makes something your business, it's okay to jump to help with both feet. i feel that these kinds of things are a sign of maturation. these and my silver fox of a husby, benny's greying hair. and the three children who keep following me around calling me 'mom'.

but i have not grown-up persay, and i know that. i'm okay with that. it makes no difference that even at the this ripe old age i could never get away with buying beer without proof that i'm 21. those genes will come in quite handy in my next phase, just wait. you'll be wondering how i could afford mj's hyperbaric aging chamber. (sorry mom! haha you know i love him too but a writer's gotta do...) i haven't gotten to the point in life where i actually have 'savings'. right now savings is considered next week's diaper money. i haven't started my career yet...my earthly career i should say, as obviously being a mother is my life career. i'm cool with waiting awhile, learning some things about me and others before i start downloading all of those golden nuggets onto young brains! in the meantime i'm doing what i feel like is the world's most important job, taking care of my kids. this is what i feel like god formed in me the womb to be, to do. but i have so much to learn yet, so many stages and ages to go through as a mother. i see how much my own parents have grown in the past ten years. they have adapted to their growing children. they are at the late-middle stage in their life. i am in the middle.

i have a few good friends who are also 30 or turning 30 or just turned 30. but my best friend who is my age is unbelievably successful in her grown-up career as a fashion/home designer. casey is the person who tells the company what is going to be 'where it's at' (as i like to say) next year. she will be a fantastic, creative, inspiring mother. the lion's share of my 30 something friends are friends i've had for years, some since i was a child, some since i was teen. for the most part though, many of my friends are either a few to several years younger, or a few to several years older than me. to some of them, my having been married for 7 years means that i have insight. for others, 7 years is a pimple on the butt of time. my two closest 'adulthood' friends as of yet are 24 and 34 (layla shoot me if i'm wrong on your age here). for one some of my references are kind of out of date (wink wink ash); and for the other i'm, 'not even 30 yet'! no...i'm in the middle.

the 'kids' at church are doing this funny thing, they've created this look that i really just don't get! it's like an updated version of 90's grunge, like a punky-nerdy thing. they wear pants that surely they can't breath in, and andy warhol glasses that freak my kids out. they're good kids, i just don't understand where they're coming from...homes without mirrors i guess. and yet when i opened the black and turquoise plaid scarf my parents got me for christmas, i'll be damed if i didn't think that i'd be pretty stinkin' hip in it on saturday nights.

i'm in the middle...i'm here and i'm finishing one chapter and beginning the next. is that perpetual, is that evolution? i guess we'll see...ask me in 2040.