wants and dreams

I recently had a birthday, a big one.  No, not 30, 31.  Which is probably only really a big one for those of us who are Mormon and still single.  For this is the age at which we loose out classification as a "young single adults" and become just "single adults".  We are encouraged to leave our young friends and meet with an older crowd.  

The other day, a friend asked me how I was doing with this change and I could honestly say that I wasn't all that phased by it because I went through my crisis of lost youth a year ago.  It's ridiculously cliche, but turning 30 terrified me.  I felt like a failure, an embarrassment, undesirable and hopeless.  Yes, I was in a really dark place (and I'm not just talking about Alaska).  

And then one day as I was caught up in the depths of despair, I started thinking about the past decade of my life.  I got this little spiritual nudge, and I saw all of the things that I'd done: the places I'd visited, the things I'd learned, the degrees that I'd earned.  I suddenly became humbled by own accomplishments and grateful for the opportunities that I had been given.  In one decade, I had exceeded any expectation that I might have had for myself as a teenager.  When I looked at my life objectively, it didn't look like a pathetic, failed existence but a grand adventure.  And I finally saw that potential that had been wasting away inside of me. 

For the majority of my teens and twenties I had two goals for myself: get married and have a family.  I had lots of other dreams but I allowed my primary goals to eclipse these dreams because I thought that was what I was supposed to do.  And, I spent 12 years of my life failing miserably.  I didn't sit idly by.  I kept busy with school and a mission and working and more school.  And though I worked hard, my heart wasn't in it.  I knew what I wanted and I knew that I didn't have it.  And I had no idea how to go about getting what I wanted - still don't obviously.  And in spite of all this confusion and turmoil, I did some really awesome things and accomplished some incredibly grueling tasks.  

I think that the real mistake of my twenties, was limiting myself to one set of goals.  And because I couldn't get what I wanted, I sort of wandered around aimlessly hoping that I'd find what I needed along the way.  

For my thirties I am determined not to make the same mistake.  For my thirties, I'm setting lots of goals.  I'm going after my dreams.  When I had my epiphany last year, I made a list of 30 things to do in my thirties.  Sadly, I lost the list but I remember a lot of the things on it and have already accomplished a few of them (e.g. visit Machu Pichu, learn to spin, start a business, plant a garden, get a cat, learn to sail, see a whale, drive across the country and sing karaoke).  And amongst the silly and the ambitious are my primary goals of getting married and starting a family.  Maybe I'll accomplish all 30 and maybe I won't, but I'm going for it.