Wow.  Not sure where the past 39 years and 2 days have gone.  Time just escapes me.  Okay, so I’m being a bit melodramatic.  But I’m 39 and get to be.

I am not sure that I am where I expected to be at 39.  I have done nothing in my life traditionally.  I didn’t go to college out of high school.  I didn’t choose my career until I was 30 and didn’t even begin to work in that field until I was 31.  I then only worked for 4 years and then stayed home with my son and then my daughter.  I have been in school the entire span of my 3rd decade of life and will be in school until I enter my 4th decade.  I never imagined this would be the path my life would take.  No one expected my life to be immersed in academia.  It still surprises my family when I talk about what I am studying (currently that is critical discourse analysis) and they wonder out loud if this is the girl they knew.

I guess that is the beauty of getting older.  I’m not the girl they knew.  The woman I am today was shaped by that girl, but she smashed through arbitrarily placed boundaries and has forged her own path.  A path that I am so happy I took.  It lead me to my husband, my children, and my career.  I wouldn’t go back and do it differently.  There is nothing in my life I’d like to change (well I’d like to be debt free–these student loans and the whole mortgage thing really get in a girls way of having a good time).  I am who I am inspite of what people expected of me.  I am who I am because of age and for that–I am happy to be 39.

This last year of my 30’s is going to be great.  I am going to finally get in shape and drop all the weight  I want to drop.  I am holding myself to that.  I owe it to my kids and myself to be in the best shape I can.  I am going to finally finish school–I won’t take any more classes after I am 40.  I’ll still be enrolled in school, but I won’t be a student.  I can’t wait for that.  So, here’s to my 30’s…you have been very very good to me.  I promise to pay it back and forward.