Whose Life Is It Anyway?

Or is it "Whose line is it, anyway?"  Oh well.  Close enough....onto the blog...

This weekend was fairly typical.  After work on Friday, I went grocery shopping.  My mom took both of the boys on Friday evening, so I had some time alone, which I spent cleaning (big surprise there, I know).  By 10 pm on Friday, I had cleaned the house from top to bottom, finished the laundry, ironed clothes for the upcoming week, and I had even made a blueberry pie!  On Saturday I got up around 6 and went for a run.  I came home, got a shower and picked up the boys.  We took a hike (see yesterday's blog for a candid recap of our thrilling adventure).  I spent the remainder of yesterday weeding, and organizing this and that (don't ask me what exactly I organized...I just know that's what I did, because that's what I do.  There's always something to organize!) before we went to my niece's birthday party in the evening.  This morning I balanced my check book, took Andrew to church, visited my aunt Carmen for a bit, made dinner, made hummus and no-refined-sugar peanut butter cookies (don't roll your eyes).  I watered the plants and laid out all of our stuff for tomorrow, including the ingredients I will need to make a slow cooker pot roast in the morning.  And that's when it hit me - this feeling of "is this really my life?"  Does anyone else get that feeling?  It's not the first time I've had it, and I'm certain it won't be the last.  It's not something that happens all the time, but every once in a while, something odd will pull me away from the moment I am in, and I will look at my life with a kind of dumbstruck awe. How on Earth did I get here? Am I actually preparing to sear a roast tomorrow before I leave for work?  Is this big house really mine?  Do I really have a 10 year old son?  When did dead-heading flowers become a priority?  Hell, when did I even learn what it means to dead-head a flower? And moreover, when did I learn to sear a pot roast?

It seems like just yesterday that I was a fresh college graduate, a newly-wed 22 year old who made a pumpkin pie with nothing except a Pillsbury ready-made pie crust and a can of pumpkin (yeah, that was super yummy).  Didn't I just learn how to add windshield wiper fluid to my car?  That was 20 years ago?  What?  20 years?  Are you sure?  Wow.  How did that happen?  I can remember being in my early 20's feeling like I couldn't wait to hit my 30's.  I have always felt a disconnect between my true self and my actual age, like my soul is older than my body.  I feel like I was born 20 years later than I was supposed to be.  I remember thinking that once I hit 30, some of the frustrations I felt would begin to dissipate.  No one takes a 20 year old seriously, but a 30 year old is a bona fide adult, a person with some life experience, someone who knows how to sear a pot roast.  To a large extent, I was right.  My 30's have been the best decade of my life so far by leaps and bounds.  I still feel older than my real age, but I make up for that by having old friends (wink, wink to all my "old" friends).  Seriously, I feel that I have finally hit my stride in a lot of ways.  People do take a 30 year old more seriously than a 20 year old.  Those ten years make a heck of a lot of difference when it comes to life experience.  It's in that decade that you learn the responsibilities of life - holding a real job, supporting a family, caring for living beings which are needier than fish (by the way, never clean a fish tank with Windex.  That's another lesson you learn in your 20's).

While 30 is a great decade, it also feels strange to know that I am now closer to 40 than I am to 30.  In my 20's, 30 sounded like the dream age.  40 never really crossed my mind, and to be honest, I'm not certain how I feel about 40 at this point.  I still feel like I am 18, until I look in the mirror and see this woman who looks very much like the 18 year old Koelle, but with some fine lines around the eyes, some sun damage on her big forehead, maybe the start of a receding gum line.  Looking at my reflection in the mirror is a bit surreal at times, and also more than a little bit frightening...especially first thing in the morning.  For the purposes of self-esteem preservation I don't recommend approaching a mirror within the first hour of waking.

I guess there really wasn't a good purpose to this blog entry other than to say that sometimes I am pretty surprised by my life.  Actually, all in all, with the exception of a few short-comings (OK, maybe more than a few), I've done pretty good.   I should be proud of myself.  I have a wonderful family - a loving and handsome (bonus!) husband, two beautiful boys, a nice home in a nice neighborhood, a good job, and great friends and family all around.  On top of all of that, I know how to dead-head flowers, can pickles, and make my own laundry detergent.  Life in the 30's may feel a little odd sometimes, but it's all good.  I'll take it.  (Except for those fine lines and sun spots - I'd like to leave those, please.  Where can I drop them off?)  While I'm waiting for my 40's to roll in, I may as well enjoy the decade I am in, surreal moments and all.  So for now, bring on the pot roasts, I've got a family to feed!