Next week, I turn 35.

If I’m doing the math right, this means that I’m closer to 40 than 30.  You would think that would upset me… but I think I got all of the angst and despair out of my system last year when I turned 34.  Mainly because Wes thought I was turning 35, and I believed him for a good long while and mourned it as the truth.

Whew.  So glad I got all of that 35 melodrama out of the way LAST year.  It will make this year so much easier!

I was going to do a really cute blog post titled “35 Great Things About Being 35.”  But that’s a lot of things to come up with, and I can only think of one huge, resounding thing that’s been playing around in my head as I’ve approached this birthday.  Take a walk with me down memory lane…

I was newly 25.  I was living in a dormitory at seminary.  I had a part-time job at a church while I was preparing for a ministry career… doing something.  Likely foreign missions, possibly home missions, maybe even church ministry?

Yeah, I didn’t know.

Most of my friends were married.  Some of my friends had been married and were now divorced.  Other friends were in serious relationships, and still others were like me — dating men who were perfect in theory and not right in reality.  I was living close enough to my parents to see them often, but I had been on my own long enough that none of us seemed to know what a “normal” parent/adult child relationship was supposed to look like.  How were relationships supposed to work now?

Yeah, I didn’t know.

25 was a weird place.  I was anticipating something without having any clue what exactly I was anticipating.  Where would I be in a few years?  Who would I be?  When would I feel like I had figured it out?

Yeah, I didn’t know.

A lady from my church was chatting with me one day back then, asking me about how classes were going, how work was, if I was seeing anyone — you know, all the typical questions.  And I told her, quite frankly, that everything felt like it was up in the air.

“I remember feeling like that,” she said.  “I spent most of my twenties like that.  You just never feel settled, you know?”

And how.  That was exactly what I felt.

“But,” she said, smiling, “your thirties are going to be so much better, you know.  When you’re 35?  You’ll know who you are and where you’re going.”

Yeah, I thought to myself.  And I’ll be freakin’ OLD!

I refrained from saying this, which was good, because she was speaking from 35 herself.  I just tucked the comment away, doubting that it would have any truth to it.

And now at 35 I find myself, ironically enough, in a very similar place that she was in.  And I find myself agreeing with her assessment. 

35 feels settled.  35 feels like something stable.  35 feels… good.

And it doesn’t feel freakin’ old at all.  It feels just right.

Can’t wait to see what 45 feels like…