THE GREAT CONJUNCTION IS THE END OF THE WORLD! Or the beginning.

As I sit here having completed my entire 29th birthday, I cannot help but reflect upon the significance of the age. When I was born, my mother was 29. It is so incredibly bizarre to me to think of my parents as someone who would be my contemporary today, and even stranger to think of having a little me in the next year. Although it is physically possible for me to have a kid, I am not in any place in my life to be procreating. Let's do a brief assessment... By this point, my parents had been married for 4 years (me: nope, not even close). They had a house. (me: nope, not even close) I was actually born about 9 months after my mom turned 29. (me: nope, not even close...whew!) :)

29. Twenty-nine. Twenty. Nine. I have always thought that if I made it to 30 I would consider myself lucky...and to even be this close seems to me to be pretty cool. I've been incredibly blessed and lucky in the world - great family, great friends and amazing opportunities and experiences around every corner. I actually really enjoy my current lifestyle but I cannot help but think I am on the cusp of a new phase. Although I do not put a priority on marriage or kids, many of my peers are beginning to have serious relationships and get married and have children. So where does this leave me? I don't particularly want to get married or have kids and yet I don't particularly want to be that random old lady hanging out way past her prime.

I think the ability to age gracefully comes with the ability to accept that things change; you can't relive the past, as much as those experiencing a mid-life crises may be trying to. Getting a really hot car might make you feel snazzier and sexier but it certainly doesn't make you younger. And at some point trying too hard makes you, if anything, more pathetic.

I distinctly remember when my dad turned 40. I was about 9 and I asked him what it felt like to be 40. At the time, it seemed to me to be so incredibly ancient - indeed, it was more than four times the entire experience of my life at that point...40! His response still resonates with me today, and I think about it annually on my own birthday, and often times more than that throughout the year:
"Well, Lauren, the interesting thing is that as you get older you actually don't ever really feel that different on the inside -- it's the way the rest of the world sees you that changes"

I'm not at all sure what's coming next. For one of the first times in my life I actually have absolutely no idea what the next step should be. Or what I even really want it to be. (which many would say matters more than the "should" anyway). I just know that at 29, in the eyes of the world around me I have truly become a legit adult, and nothing I can do will make the grains of sand return to the top part of the hour glass.

So; I'm going to go with it. I by no means consider myself to be old. Far from from it. However, I can look back on enough and have changed perspectives enough from the days of my youth that I no longer associate myself entirely with that stage of life.

And you're right Dad; I still feel pretty much the same. Like me. It's just taken a while to figure out exactly what "me" feels like.

Song of the Day: Cats in the Cradle - Ugly Kid Joe (please forgive my inability to find the Cat Stevens version)