Suddenly Thirty

You know that Jennifer Garner movie, where she's at her 13th birthday party one minute, but then she wakes up the next morning to find that she's suddenly 30 years old?! Well no one has recently sprinkled magic dust all over me or anything, but I still kind of feel like maybe that's what's happened to me (Mark Ruffalo has yet to show up, but don't worry, I'm keeping an eye out for him). I swear it was only yesterday that I was 20, yet suddenly here I am, face to face with my 30th birthday. Today's the 1st of October, and this is the month that will force me (pretty unwillingly) into the next decade of my life.

I have been dreading this all year. I knew it was coming (duh!), and I've been having multiple preparatory 'break-downs' over the impending doom that is the 31st of October. Practise makes perfect, and so I'm getting really good at having 'breakdowns'. They leave me feeling depressed on a good day, and panicked and terrified on the bad days (which sounds overly dramatic, but is actually kind of true, lol!). I should clarify that it's actually not the 'getting older' part of this whole thing that bothers me (I don't really mind that part at all), it's the 'reaching my 30th birthday and still not being married with kids' that is leaving me in such a mess. I don't really talk about it much, and I don't like to, because there really isn't much point, but it seems impossible to personally consider myself as anything but a complete and utter failure, not because of what others may or may not think (I'm not too bothered about that), but just because of what I think about it all. I only had one real goal in life, and that was it! So it does feel like I've failed at life. (I'm sure lots of you would say wonderful things to try and make me feel better, and swear that I'm not a failure - which is why I love you all so much :)).

But anyway, that's not the point of this post, that was just to give you some context for this next part: I've been trying to find a different way to look at this birthday thing, and a week or two ago an idea occured to me that I've finally decided to adopt. I have 31 days till 'D-Day', and I'd really (really) like to be feeling a little more positive about things. And as I've tried to be positive, I've been trying to focus more on all of the wonderful things that have happened to me over these 30 years, or the wonderful things I've learnt, or the people I've met, or the experiences I've had. Because in my head and heart, I can't deny that my life so far (depsite it's disapointments and hard times) has been absolutely wonderful. I have so much more than so many people in this world could ever hope to have, and I certianly have more than I could ever hope to deserve. So as a tiny show of gratitude to my Heavenly Father, I'd really like to try and focus on everything I've been blessed with - because the list is so long.

Each day this month, I'm going to post about something wondeful from my life's experiences so far. I'm hesitant to make that kind of commitment because I'm extremely time-poor at the moment (so some of the posts might be really short, lol!), but I actually think it's too important not to do. All this dread and negative focus is having such a bad effect on me, and I don't want to get all bitter just because I'm in my thirties - lol! I'm also really hoping that if I start to feel all grateful and positive, than I'll stop feeling so completely frozen by panic, and will be able to start breathing normally again :)

Please feel free to read along and comment (or even to add 'wonderful' things I'm missing, lol!), and hopefully you'll notice a bit of a more positive, happy, less-tear-inclined Tammy by the end of the month :)

xoxo Tammy