Happy Birthday to me!

Yesterday was my birthday. #36... ugh. I am starting to hate birthdays and I hate that I hate them. Afterall, everyone ages. I just don't want to. I recognize the benefits of growing older... wisdom, patience, perspective. I just want to have all that and be 23. Not really. I guess to be 23 means I'd have to start all over again and I definitely DO NOT want to do that. It's been a lot of hard work to get here and I'm proud of all I have accomplished. So I don't want to lose the gains, but I don't want to gain anymore years either!

The only thing that makes it palatable is that I see my friends age as well. I certainly would not want them to leave me behind. And I don't want to stay young without them. I like being able to trade stories about our homes and kids and parents and jobs and all the junk that comes with being a grown up. T.V., movies and books make youth look so prescient and wise, so beautiful and thin, so... got it all together and my youth as well. But I know that's a farce. Youth do not have what I have. I have experience that can only be gained daily, and it takes a lot of "dailies" to get what I have. I have wisdom and have learned things that I had no idea I would ever need to know. I get to see who my kids are becoming. Take that 23-year-old kidless self.

I know what my life will look like when I'm 35. No 18-year-old knows that. Or even if he will ever be 35. I know, despite all the fears and second-guessing, it turned out all right. I know what will matter 20 years out of high school. I know how very little high school matters. I know if I lost my girlish figure after having kids. I know that life is not fair... and I'm O.K. with that. It's not fair to anybody. It took a lot years to learn that one.

I know God is good. I know He has sustained me this far and He's not about to stop now.

I spent my actual birthday at a Royal Family Kid's Camp hosting their Birthday Party. It's our chance to tell the kids that the day of their birth was no accident. They are here for a reason. God loves them and has a plan for their lives. As I looked into their faces, I couldn't help but think, "What will happen to them?" I don't know. But I know what happened to me.

Thirty-six. Halfway to seventy. Ugh. Halfway home. I know what the first half held. Can't wait to see the second.