Birthdays and New Year's Day

I turned thirty-three the other day. You know when you’re a kid and a grown-up asks you how it feels to be such and such age? Well, if you were to ask me how it feels to be thirty-three, I’d have to say it feels a lot like thirty-two but it a bit more depressing. It’s not that I’m embarrassed or depressed about my age, but I can’t help thinking that I’m growing older and nothing spectacular seems to be happening. That sounds silly, I know, but it’s true. I guess when we’re teenagers, we think we know it all and we’re going to change the world with what we know. Then, when we’re all grown-up, we realize we didn’t know it all, and the world is very much not impressed with the little that we do know. lol

There was a song out a few years ago called, “1985”. I remember laughing when I first heard it. It was 2005, I was pregnant with my first baby, and I was on my way home from work. The radio was playing in the van. The driver turned up the volume, and I heard, “Springsteen, Madonna. Way before Nervana, there was U2 and Blondy and music still on MTV. Her two kids in high school, they tell her that she’s uncool. But, she’s still preoccupied in 1985.” :D

I remembered a lot of the things mentioned in the song. I remember my dad watching MTV, and it was music videos. I remembered listening to Springsteen and Madonna. A cousin of mine used to have a cassette tape of White Snake. 1985, in 2005 was just as real to me, as it was to the woman in the song. A few days after I heard that song, I was sitting at a table and talking to some kids in middle school. The one said something about going to a Tracy Lawrence concert. I said something like, “He was popular when I was thirteen.” One of the girls was like, “I know. That was like when I was born.” Haha! That, y’all was the first time in my life that I ever felt old. lol

A friend of mine, when she turned forty, decided it was time to sit down and write the book she always wanted to write. So, that is what she did. Her one daughter is married, her other daughter is engaged to be married, and her homeschooled son is in high school, doing most of the work on his own. Me, on the other hand, now, I wrote a book, and now I’m trying to concentrate on raising my children who are practically still babies. I don’t know what nuggets of wisdom I’ms upposed to gain in comparing my friend and I,, but I wonder, when my kids are grown, will I look back and find something I’d wish I had done? If so, wonder what that will be?

I’ve always been a dreamer. Some of my dreams are big and some aren’t. Some are way too outrageous for my own good, and some, while not too big, are big enough that I don’t have room on my already-full plate for them to ever come to fruition. But, still, I wonder if any of those dreams will ever amount to anything. Maybe, they will become books. I love making up stories, after all. Maybe, the really outrageous dreams are only meant to give me something to smile about. Then again, we can’t see the future, therefore, we never know what God has in store for us.

It’s a new year. Last year, as I told my 6-year-old on New Year’s Eve, is gone. We’ll never see 2011 again. Babies were born last year, family members died. Some folks got married, and others got divorced. Those babies will never be teeny babies again. Those who have died, we’ll never see again this side of eternity. The person you married will never be your fiance, again, and the spouse you divorced is no longer yours to have and to hold. But, since we’re alive and kicking, God isn’t finished with us. He has something He wants us to do, somewhere He wants us to go, someone out there He wants us to witness to. And, if you don’t know Him, He’s calling your name and has something wonderful planned for you, a relationship with Him. Since we can’t go back to yesterday, we have no choice but to plow ahead to the rest of today.. We’re not promised tomorrow, after all. We have to live in the “now”. Now, is all we have.

As for resolutions, I made one. I promised myself that I would do the best I could do in my now. I’m not going to worry about the decisions I made yesterday. I am not going to worry about the decisions I have to make tomorrow. I am going to live and do my best right now. Right now, I’m going to love my children and show them how much I love them. Right now, I’m going to do the job God has given me. Right now, I’m going to be the best wife I know how to be.

Last year, about this time, if you care to go back that far on this blog, I was writing about obedience. Nothing much has changed since January 2011; it has, however, gotten better. Three years ago, about this time, I had just published my first book. A few things have changed since then, mostly I’ve fallen off cloud nine and realized writing isn’t as easy as I thought it would be. :) What will I blog about in January 2013? What will be different next year? Only God knows. But, my goal for this year is to live in such a way that when I look back to January 2012, I have no regrets. How about you?