Rhythm Keene's Bloom Ave

30

My 30th birthday is a little over 2 months away.  Close enough that soon I’ll be counting it in weeks and days, like a first-time mother.  But almost paralyzed by the question of what exactly I’ve birthed thus far…

I’m looking forward to my 30s, but until this very moment, I hadn’t thought about the possibility of missing my 20s… not the idea of the number, but the actual decade.  That space that showed me so much about life and myself.  That teacher that was often harsh and unrelenting with her lessons, the remnants from which I’m still actively recovering on a daily basis.  Jewels, really.  So precious, that I continue to hold them near.  So hard-won that I refuse to forget them ever, lest I perish in the excavation the next go-round.  The only reason I know I will survive is because I have.  God reminds me there is purpose in this.

My 20s saw me broken.  More times than I care to count.  My late 20s boast the majority of those traumatic, wingless spans.  Plenty of scars and stripes.  Forever. 

But there was joy in between those lines.  Enough to keep me going.  Treading water at best sometimes, but going.  Living enough to thrive again.  Maintaining enough to receive resuscitation.  And treasure the gift of beginning again, no matter how daunting the idea of it all.

And as I prepare to bid a loving, grateful, farewell, to this decade, I am thankful for all it has brought me.  The love, the laughter, the joy, the tears, the heartbreak.  Three or four gray hairs and the brazen glory of cutting it all too short to notice.  The loss of my father and the blessing of his cautionary tale song.  Friends lost and gained.  The courage to love again and the wisdom to love better this time.  The gratitude in finally beginning to appreciate my mother as a woman, broken and whole, all separate from my existence.  And in all of it, the reminder to live. Now.  Completely.

Fin.  For Now.