The Long And Unwinding Road

Every so often, I get out of my own way and allow myself the privilege of a spectacular weekend. This past weekend fell delightfully into this category. Full of familiar faces, old friends and new beginnings, it felt like a trip down memory lane that curved into my future.

It was full of my favorite things, people and places. It wasn't a hard pocket of time to create -- I simply had to go along for the ride. To make the choices to spend my time doing what felt right, devoting myself to living research and accepting happiness.

I can't describe it better than that, and I recognize that is a terribly fallible way to explain what I'm feeling.

I turn 30 next Sunday. An age that as a child I saw from such a distance. It didn't have much of a connotation for me - neither old, nor mature. Settled or responsible. I'm sure I assumed it as "grown up," but only in passing even then.

There's something amazing, being able to blow a kiss to my twenties as I slip into a new decade. An era of comfortability and courage. Two seemingly opposite attributes that feel as though they're setting in. As though I'm molting away the fears of yesterday and my new layer of skin is firming from the qualities I always wanted to become.

It's not the 30. Age doesn't change a person, a person changes the self. And I'm ready for that next leg of this unwinding road. To see where it leads me and how I find myself there. Change is coming. Isn't it always? And I'm getting closer to being able to welcome it, to recognize that it's not the harbinger bearing ill will, but opportunity, wearing a sweet smile and opening its outstretched hand.

Today's word is: marginalia