Wow. 30. It really happened!
Guess you can sit around on your ass and wait for things and they will come, like the inevitable slow creep of time. But 30! Wow! I don't feel 30! And everyone I know over 30 says you never really stop feeling like you're over 25. Except my grandma, who says she feels 18. My cousin Melissa says 30 is the new 21, so I guess I should take heart. Anyway, it's not such a bad place to be. I woke up the morning of my birthday feeling pretty warm, and I automatically started to assess the decade. Mon dieux, the things that have passed! From living like crap on the Burdette St. house where it rained through the screen windows onto the bed while I slept (and everything else entailed with that era), to moving home and reconnecting with my family in what was a beautiful period of peace... To setting out for Boulder, which I hated, but which got me out to this PhD crap in a roundabout way all the same -- what a move, I still can't believe I just jumped and did that... To spending that summer in Montana camped out in a tent by Yellowstone -- that truly changed my life... To coming back home to NOLA and nearly breaking over the sadness of missing my adventure... To going back out to MT for my masters degree and falling in love with life and the place -- two of the very best years of my life... To this trip to Austin which has been severely devestating with its hard lessons -- two and a half years now of feeling intermittently like the life is fading out of me... But also meeting Jesse and finding out how amazing a relationship can be with a guy... To this moment, where I'm finally about to leave Austin and all its sadnesses behind, come May... It's been such a rich decade. On the one hand, I totally understand that Pink Floyd lyric, "And then one day you find/ ten years have got behind you/ No one told you when to run/ You missed the starting gun." I can see and understand that, but then, upon closer scrutiny, the depth of most of these years... and the change... is staggering.
And the here/now -- I woke up on my birthday and watched Jesse sleeping and thought for the first time that being with him for the rest of my life would be a welcome opportunity. And that was a real gift of a moment.
But it wouldn't be a real entry without some mention of all the festivities. Wow -- it's been a full week or more (I think more) of celebrating -- but then I figured that I deserve it. I had a sushi party at my house (see the pics on the sidebar for some detail of the event) -- and somehow a tiny seed of debauchery must have made its way into the house, because my once-neighbor Monica ended up delighting in fishy pleasures -- and she's been a vegetarian for years. How did this happen? Last year she ate a shrimp at my party by mistake, and has been meatless since then, but this year was no mistake. Granted, the squid salad was excellent, but... Well, I'm either honored or frightened that she chose my house as the site for carnage -- can't quite figure out which.
My parents also threw me a family party on Friday, and that was excellent too. My Aunt Re made me the same sort of heart cake she's been making since I was a little girl -- in honor of my Valentine bday -- and I'm so honored that she went out of her way to do that. And my nephew Chandler (he's 7) was the photographer all night -- he's got a great eye, too -- and I really didn't know that about him till now.
Saturday was my actual bday, plus Andy and Michelle's wedding. This worked out really well, since it meant that all of my NOLA friends would be in the same place on the same day, plus Lei Lani had to come in from Seattle for the wedding. It was great -- Andy and Michelle even got the band to play me "Happy Birthday" during the reception, and they put a candle on top of a piece of their wedding cake. How cool! It was so generous of them to share a moment of their day with me -- so touching. And then Jesse caught the garter and came over and put it on my leg -- so we have a pic from the wedding photographer of him lifting up my loooooong skirt all the way up my thigh to show off the garter. Oh so tacky! Oh so wonderful!He cracks me up too -- he even made me buy new shoes for the wedding because the ones I had were so scuffed up. I can't get over this -- it is entirely uncharacteristic of him. I think what happens is that he puts on this trenchcoat that he has and then suddenly feels all GQ, like he's picked up instant fashion sense. It's bizarre, but it's a riot if you know him.
And LL and the gals decided I should be a princess that night, so they all surprised me at Philips bar and made me wear a floofy Barbie tiara and carry around a princess wand. Since I'm the princess and all.
All in all, there was so much more, but it was just a blessed day. So beautiful, and with so much love all around.
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