Thirty, Way Less Flirty, & Finally Thriving

My sisters couldn't stop repeating that line during my birthday weekend.  Hitting thirty has been more anti-climactic than I expected, in practice if not in preparation.  Wow, I'm really emotional today, not quire sure how this one is going to go so I'll apologize in advance.  I never expected to be thirty & not be a mother yet.  I really never expected to be thirty and not even be married, engaged, or really have any serious prospects.  For a very long time I was convinced it had to be happen by now but obviously, it hasn't.  I'm pretty sure there are a whole lot of people, whether specific to me or themselves, who think that this is pretty much the end of the world.

Here is my answer: it isn't.  I want a husband.  I want children, so much that when I had the opportunity to be a mother I almost gave up on everything else I ever wanted for my life.  I have never once regretted the decision I made to follow my Heavenly Father's plan for me, rather than my own.  I'm mildly overwhelmed by the epic load which I have taken on with this master's degree, partially cutting out a semester from the prescribed program length, but more the weighty responsibility that I already feel for the people I wholeheartedly believe I am destined to help.  Grad school is expensive, money-wise but even more so for time and energy.  I give up a lot on a regular basis to walk this path.  And at this point in my life, I could not be happier.

I don't have everything that I want.  I don't have a body that works properly all the time or does what I want it to do.  But you know what?  In the most vital ways, my body no longer sabotages me.  My subconscious still does sometimes, & that can make sleep a miserable venture.  But the things that matter most?  They're in line.  There's a lot that I don't know about what the next thirty years of my life will be.  Honestly, I don't know if any time during the next thirty years will find me kneeling across the altar from my eternal companion, crying in a delivery room, or anxiously signing adoption papers.  My ideal future would include all three of those moments, preferable at least a few of the last two.  I hope & pray for all of those experiences, sometimes a few times an hour.

There are a few things about my future that I do know: the next thirty years will find me still a covenant-keeping woman, a faithful daughter of God.  I won't be perfect.  I won't even come close.  But I will never again turn my back on who I am meant to become, or on the sacred covenants I have made.  Today in sacrament meeting I felt incredibly anxious, as I have a few times in the past, to do something very specific to further sever ties with who I used to be.  I have a general idea of how to do this, but the logistics have been tricky enough to figure out that I've avoided it.

Thinking that this insight needed to be written down, I pulled out my journal.  For some reason rather than writing, I opened it to the day I received my endowments & began to read.  I have done my best to make it to the temple every week since then.  I haven't always succeeded, but my average is still ahead & I figure that counts as much as it should.  I have now been able to perform or witness sacred saving ordinances in three temples in two states, with people I love beyond measure.  There is so much that I don't know, about myself, about my future, about so many things.  But the things that I know are so incomparable to any alternative I could ever choose.  For me, there is no choice.

One of the entries I read was written after my brother, his wife, & their little boys became a forever family.  I was so emotionally overwhelmed that day.  I knew their future children were there in that sealing room.  I don't know if anyone else felt that way, but it was completely overwhelming for me & at least in my mind that impression has been adamantly affirmed.  I can't explain that sense.  It is the same feeling I get when I remember the promises I have made, a sense that my future husband, my future children are tied to the choices which I make.  They need me to be happy now, to make the most of this life I am living now.  Were I to sit around bemoaning my spinster status, I may never have them.  The only choice I have to make now is to be better, every single day, so that one day I am the best possible wife & mother I could be for them.  Cross your fingers it happens before another year rolls around!  If it doesn't?  I'll still be so grateful & even joyful for the indescribable blessing of this tremendous life.  So bring on the next decade!