This is 30!

Celebrating my 30th Birthday with my family.
Russy Warren (center) and my husband Benjamin.

I think thirty is that first big milestone birthday that really makes you stop and think. Lets face it with all those big teen birthdays we don't have brains that are developed enough to fully

My mom and I

conceptualize the life and years ahead. At sixteen all you care about is getting behind the wheel, and taking a good driver's license picture. Seventeen gives you the opportunity to buy a ticket to whatever movie you please, and eighteen gives you special permission to things and habits many wish they could have abandoned that same year. Twenty you have a false since of security in feeling like an adult, twenty-one is most often a blur, and by twenty-five high schoolers are starting to look like young-ins. And during the last four years of your twenties all you can think about is how much closer you are to being 30!

By the time you are about to hit thirty you are suddenly  way more aware of wrinkles that seemingly have begun to get deeper, and skin that just doesn't bounce back like it once did. As you reach thirty you also become more aware of  aches and pains you will have to learn to live with, as well as the reality that no beauty regiment is going to stop your eyes from getting dimmer and hair from getting looser. The joy, however, in turning thirty comes with security in the person you are becoming, gratification that comes with financial security and an established career, or at least a knowledge of who you are and are striving to become. As you reach thirty you are coming into the age where evaluation of your clothes, friends, and outings are necessary to keep from being "those people". Those people who are stuck in their desires to not get older and wishful thinking that you will always be granted another day or another year to get things right.

8yro and ready to dominate on
some Trick or Treating

As I celebrate my thirtieth year I believe because of Cancer I have a better grasp than most of the evolution this life takes us on. We go from thinking we will always have a tomorrow, to learning how fragile and futile this life can be, to hopefully wrestling with the desire to make something out of the life and days we are given, and ultimately realizing how silly some of those things were that we used to worry so much about.

Me at 1yro. Loving life with
not a care in the world.

With today being the beginning of my thirtieth year of life I can only wish that I would be blessed with another thirty years to get it right. Realizing that none of us are promised thirty more years I hope going forward to make the best of each day I am given until the promise of my death is fulfilled, and I can be rid of this tent that becomes more battered with each birthday celebration.

 Until the anticipation of  another birthday celebration is fulfilled I can only hope to be remembered as this at 30; A joy to my friends and family, an inspiration to those in need, an advocate for the oppressed, a do gooder, an example of God's love and grace, a woman who faced and conquered her fears, someone who aged with poise, and finally a lady who gave an all out effort to succeed despite the adversity that comes with each passing year.