Wildly Grateful, Mildly Terrified
On grief, time, and the rapture of a cappuccino.
Last week, I entered the last year of my 30s. In many ways, it feels impossible that this decade is almost over. In others, I feel like I’ve been 45 for years.
Living through my 30s has felt like riding a bus through uncharted terrain. The ride has been bumpy, filled with wonder and happy surprises (Look, a waterfall! Whoa, is that an eagle??), and also stops I very much wished I could skip (Please, driver, no need to linger in the early 2020s).
Ten years ago we had a not-quite one year old and a fledgling side hustle.
I would’ve never predicted that my part time hobby would become a full time gig, not just for myself, but for our whole family. In 2019, my husband was able to quit his miserable job working in IT finance (a special kind of corporate hell) and work from home with me. We got to make food, share food, and be home with our kids. We got to annoy each other at work every single day and then argue about parenting in the evenings!
I’m kidding! But not totally kidding. We added coworker and boss to our already hefty relationship status of besties/co-parents/lovers, and that’s a whole lot for any relationship to hold. The only water cooler gossip in our office was about each other. We have shared many laughs and a lesser, but not insignificant, amount of tears. We’ve mostly figured out how to work through conflict rather than shove it into a little box to fester for years. It’s been a challenge and a gift and a massive privilege. I’m proud of us, and of the weird, wonderful work we’ve produced together (fast forward to the bloopers for an example).
We have enjoyed a level of financial stability that I never expected, and I don’t know that we’ll ever have again. It afforded us a house in a neighborhood we love, but the real treasure and the sweetest surprise has been the neighbors themselves. We now enjoy the kind of open-door, kids-tromping-from-house-to-house, spontaneous-patio-hang-out-life I’ve always dreamed of.
Friends I had barely met or didn’t know at all a decade ago are now some of my nearest and dearest. We’ve seen each other through surprise babies and surprise divorces, new jobs, unexpected losses, bodies changing and breaking and finally settling into some kind of generous truce.
And then there’s the kids, two of them now! And they’ve got muscles where rolls of baby fat used to gather, and they’re funny and they have Interests and Opinions and Friends, and sometimes also Anxiety and Other Big Feelings. My oldest can mow the lawn! No one needs me to clip their fingernails or wipe their butts, a realization that fills me with gratitude and also makes my chest feel like its going to cave in on itself.
And then there were the stops that absolutely sucked. I looked out that bus window and caught nothing but an abandoned shack, two tumbleweeds, and a whiff of dread. I begged the driver to keep going, but he was insistent (what a jerk).
