Pre-Birthday Jitters

Tomorrow is my birthday. My (gulp) 27th birthday. What's the consensus: Is this the official move from the Mid-Twenties to the Late Twenties, or can I still claim myself as Mid-Twenties gal?

I was looking at my hair today. I'm having a good hair day, which is nice since I'm partying tonight. My hair is brown, but has lots of golden highlights from the Montana sunshine. I like the color very much, I must say. But 27 is getting awfully close to 30, and 30 is getting awfully close to 40 (right?), and somewhere between 30 and 40 a woman can expect some gray hairs, right? When it comes down to it, I have a limited amount of time in which to enjoy non-gray hair. I don't think I'm quite ready for gray hair yet . . .

Don't worry, that's not the only thing I've been thinking about today. It's a smoky day today--lots of wildfires around the state, and the air is close and warm and hazy.


Yesterday Teresa and I wanted to take advantage of the warm weather to go for one last tubing outing of the summer. Unfortunately, the Blackfoot was FREEZING. We waded in, gasping, and by the time we got into water up to our knees we couldn't feel our feet. So instead of the two-mile trip we'd planned, we walked up about 100 yards, put our tubes in, and numbed our butts while we floated back down. BRRRR!!!! I suppose this means that summer is officially over, but what if I'm not quite ready for that?







However, there are some new beginnings right now, too. One of them is that Teresa just adopted a dog from the Humane Society! Her name is Sasha, and she's 83 pounds of sweet and mellow Keeshond-cross mutt. Today I took her down to the river, and discovered that she loves water. She waded right in, and took off after some ducks that were floating down the river on the far side. After several minutes of concentrated calling and whistling on my part, she came back. (The fact that the ducks were rapidly putting distance between may have had some small part in her return . . . ) She's quite the princess!

This past week was also the first week of school--yet another change I'm not ready for. I'm sensing that this will be a busy semester for me--two classes plus 30 hours of working. I'm more than a bit apprehensive, but I've given myself three-day weekends, so I'm hoping that will help. (However, throughout the course of this lovely FOUR-day weekend I have done only an hour's worth of homework, so obviously I'm going to have to work on things like efficiency and motivation. Plah.)


Life is good, though. I'm reading "Reaching Out" by Henri Nouwen, and finding that it has a lot of relevance at this point in my life. He talks about the distinction between 'solitude' and 'loneliness,' and I am constantly amazed by his wisdom:

To live a spiritual life we must first find the courage to enter into the desert of our loneliness and to change it by gentle and persistent efforts into a garden of solitude. This requires not only courage but also a strong faith.

Unless our questions, problems and concerns are tested and matured in solitude, it is not realistic to expect answers that are really our own . . . . A lonely person has no inner time nor inner rest to wait and listen. He wants answers and wants them here and now. But in solitude we can pay attention to our inner self. In solitude we can become present to ourselves. [In solitude] we also can become present to others by reaching out to them, not greedy for attention and affection but offering our own selves to help build a community of love. Solitude does not pull us away from our fellow human beings but instead makes real fellowship possible.

I love the paradox. I love also the challenge in Nouwen's words. Lately I have felt God showing me a vision of the kind of person I can be. I don't know exactly what kind of journey it will be; I don't know exactly what path I need to take. But the simple fact that there is a path, that God does have changes planned for me, is enough. I am girding my loins and gathering my oft-faltering courage, and am taking steps, tiny steps, and am mostly moving in the right direction. This is a good thing to do now, at the beginning of my 28th year.