Yesterday I turned 28 years old.
I mean…28 years young.
Sometimes I forget that I’m still relatively young with a lot of life to (hopefully) live.
I spend my days raising babies and toddlers and preschoolers and taking care of marriage.
I cook and clean and feed people and drive and somewhere at the end of the day I occasionally find a few minutes for myself to read a book before I turn off the light- hopefully before 11 pm.
Some days I forget that I’m relatively young with a lot of life left to live.
My favorite past time is doing puzzles and I think that youth these days wear shorts that are far too short.
So some days I forget that I’m still relatively young with a lot of life to live.
I had to see a chiropractor recently because I’ve had such bad headaches. Turns out carrying around an almost 20 pound baby is not very good for my back. I’ve had tooth pain and the other day I hopped out of bed and I had shooting pain through my hip. The other night I thought to myself: maybe I’m aging. WAIT. I’M AGING. I’m OLD.
So some days I forget that I’m still relatively young with a lot of life to live.
The past few years have brought with them a lot of responsibility. Theo and I have owned a house, cared for it and properly managed it. We’ve put that house on the market and are near closing. We have run an Airbnb. We have worked jobs, had babies and taken care of other people’s babies. Recently we have walked with friends through hard times. I confess that several times this year I have cried a little bit over how burdensome it feels to be the responsible ones. What would it cost to be irresponsible just this once? I say that with a little bit of humor, but sometimes I really do ask myself that. And then I take myself off to bed like a responsible person would do.
Sometimes I just forget that I’m relatively young with a lot of life left to live.
Yesterday on my 28th birthday I saw three other adults and three children. One child woke me up at 6 am by flipping on my light and asking for a diaper change. The other child woke up at 7 am and told me that they had peed. The other child can’t talk. The three adults wished me a happy birthday and then set about their days, making me feel special in whatever way they could. I received two phone calls wishing me a happy birthday, and several texts. I got four cards in the mail – one from Grandma, one from my MIL and two from sweet friends who remembered my birthday in time to send a card.
So sometimes I feel much older than my 28 years. I feel like I’m the responsible one, and I don’t always love that.
But sometimes I remember that I’m only 28 years young. I’ve lived a lot of life in my 28 years. And I have so many more beautiful minutes and days and years left to live.
So bring it on, 28 years young!
