I turned 30 this year. THIRTY. 3. 0. Not 18. Not 25. I am halfway to 60 and a third of the way to 90. And what have I done?

Well...

I have dated and been proposed to and said yes and planned a wedding and said 'I do' and changed my name and gone on a honeymoon and gone through the end of the "honeymoon". And I have found out that I am still finding out what the reality of living with and committing to your spouse unconditionally really means.

 I made it through pregnancy and 9 months of morning sickness and labor and delivery and nursing and teething and the terrible twos and a screaming, vomit-covered child in the middle of the night. Only to discover that love, real love, always demands more than you ever thought you had to give. Yet somehow, in some mysterious, miraculous way, you are never completely emptied. There is always more. 

I have been bitten in the face by a dog. I have had my nose broken twice. I fractured my spine. I fractured a rib. I got my belly button pierced. I stopped wearing only 1-piece bathing suits. I wrote a book.

I have learned how to crochet and properly roast a chicken, how to hand-till a garden plot and fight fair and be honest about what I need. I have let nature heal my body and I have moved to a city where I didn't know another person and I have bought a house and refinished furniture and cleaned tile grout on my hands and knees with a toothbrush. 

But by far the two most important things these past 30 years have taught me are, number 1, how little I really know about life. And number 2, that this is ok.