I don't know exactly why but 26 had made me feel old. I never felt age creeping up on me with the oncoming of any other previous birthdays but this one has made old. Well, as old as a 26 year old can feel.
Maybe it was the other night at the bar when I was just trying to get a little dinner in my stomach and there were some pretty loud "kids" trying to get a little booze in their stomach. I found myself glancing at them with distaste as they loudly requested rounds and rounds of shots all the time exclaiming "woooooo". The moment I caught myself commenting that they were "so loud", I realized I'm old. Not in years, for surely they couldn't be any more than 4 years my junior, but in phase of life we were on totally different planes. "Loud" has always been a way I have been described. In fact, my mother once commented that a friend and I were in a perpetual state of loud squealing or sleep, but that there was no middle ground.
So, what happened to me? When did this new phase of life sneak up on me? When did I stop being the loud squealing girl and start being an (cue the dramatic music, dun dun dun)... adult?
Well in pondering these questions I turned to Ally and we decided to come up with a list of 30 Things to Do by 30, in hopes of wrapping my mind around this next phase of my life. Some I've borrowed and others I've come up with myself. So here is my list:
1. Be in touch better with the people in my life that I love and that deserve it.
2. Develop better and more realistic expectations of myself.
3. Have a career plan and stop relying on happenstance to take over.
4. Trust that happenstance is not always a bad thing.
5. Understand that worry is not a productive feeling to dwell on or act on.
6. Stop apologizing for things that I do not need to apologize for.
7. Accept people for who they are and not what they say they are or what you wish they could be.
8. Accept that some times people change, but most likely, never will.
9. Create more. (Aka, blog more, hint hint)
10. Learn a new skill that you never thought you could conquer, ie killing a spider on your own without so much screaming.
11. Embrace being spontaneous.
12. Hike to the top of Humphreys.
13. Make a budget and follow it.
14. Create a retirement fund and then actually contribute to it.
15. Surf.
16. Have a regular volunteering gig.
17. Have a big girl piece of furniture.
18. Learn how to work power tools with confidence.
19. Read one book a month for a year.
20. Learn how to play (at least) on song on the guitar.
21. Take my mom, dad, brother and sister-in-law on a date each.
22. Enter an art show and actually win a prize (Lebanon Country Fair doesn't count).
23. Get rid of 100 things.
24. Learn to drive stick.
25. Actually make frozen ready to cook crockpot meals for a month in advance.
26. Have a good credit score.
27. Begin another degree or continue educating myself.
28. Travel to Istanbul not Constantinople.
29. See the northern lights.
30. Excitement for the next 30!
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