The Season of 30

I don’t believe in the con­cept of a clean slate.

I don’t believe that we ever real­ly start from scratch.

I believe that no mat­ter where we go, we car­ry our past with us. Our life expe­ri­ences shape how we face each new day and the obsta­cles that lie ahead.

A few weeks ago, I reached a new per­son­al mile­stone. I turned 30.

Thir­ty years old — an age many of my friends are approach­ing with much trepidation.

Me?

I could­n’t be more thrilled.

A new decade!

An even number!

A num­ber that involves no round­ing to the near­est ten!

[Ele­men­tary school teacher sim­ple pleasures?]

Most impor­tant­ly, a new season.

When I first start­ed teach­ing, I was thrilled to learn how much of the ele­men­tary school cur­ricu­lum is about sea­sons. Nerd that I am, I took bizarre delight in any and all oppor­tu­ni­ties to draw a detailed ren­di­tion of the life cycle of a but­ter­fly or act out the four weath­er sea­sons with a squadron of 5 year olds. My go-to class­room music was Vivaldi’s infa­mous “Four Sea­sons” and despite a still-stand­ing pact with grad school friends to nev­er fall vic­tim to “the sea­son­al sweater,” I take great delight in the dec­o­ra­tions that don’t actu­al­ly touch my body.

To me, there is some­thing so refresh­ing and inspi­ra­tional about a new sea­son. In spite of what­ev­er has tak­en place in the pri­or sea­son, the cycle con­tin­ues. It’s unstop­pable. A real­ly harsh win­ter may result in few­er flow­ers in spring…but even­tu­al­ly, spring always gets here and is fol­lowed by sum­mer, then autumn and then back to win­ter again.

[Pux­atony Phil, that was my not-so-sub­tle hint to FINALLY deliv­er the Spring that you promised. Seri­ous­ly ground­hog, get on with it.]

So here I am. The sea­son of 30.

In col­lege, my house­mates and I were mild­ly obsessed with “13 going on 30.” I mean, hel­lo — Jen­nifer Gar­ner, Matt Ruf­fa­lo and a steady stream of Raz­zles? What’s not to like?? For Valen­tine’s Day, I made all of the girls lit­tle heart-shaped jars of red and sil­ver glit­ter with a tag that said “Thir­ty, Flir­ty and Thriv­ing,” just like the mag­ic glit­ter in the movie. That day seemed so far away at the time.

If you had asked me five years ago what 30 would look like, I’m not going to lie and tell you that my life now is what I pic­tured. It’s not even close. But I still don’t think I missed the mag­ic glitter.

Tomor­row I have an appoint­ment with my gas­troen­terol­o­gist. It goes with­out say­ing, that I typ­i­cal­ly dread these appoint­ments. I am obvi­ous­ly well past the awk­ward­ness of the first cou­ple of moments in the GI wing, but I still don’t gen­er­al­ly list sit­ting down for a chat about nau­sea, my time in the bath­room or inap­pro­pri­ate place­ment of air as a social activ­i­ty. For GI-new­bies, let me just set you straight: these peo­ple talk about poop and gas all day. ALL. DAY. So just buck up and let it out.

[hor­ri­ble pun maybe a lit­tle bit intended…]

In terms of symp­toms, I should real­ly stick with my typ­i­cal appoint­ment dread. The past few months have been among my worst in pain and sever­i­ty of symp­toms. But still, no dread. In this new sea­son of my life, I know what my body is capa­ble of and I know how to han­dle it. I’m not going into this appoint­ment fear­ing some new, crazy pro­ce­dure or cross­ing my fin­gers to join a clin­i­cal tri­al of a drug that will grow me a third arm. I’m going to this appoint­ment to check in and reas­sure my doc­tor that I’m still in one piece. Despite my recent track record, my hus­band and I just returned from our first non-med­ical trip since our honeymoon…and I did just fine. Yes, I came home a bit nutri­ent defi­cient and yes I lost 5 pounds in 6 days… and yes, I got away for a week with my hus­band and loved it.

[How­ev­er, Pux­atony Phil, we could have done with­out the 40 degree tem­per­a­tures in Flori­da. Get crack­ing groundhog.]

Tomor­row I will go to my appoint­ment. I will share my symp­toms and stats when asked. I will get var­i­ous body parts poked and prod­ded and we will like­ly spend an unusu­al­ly long amount of time exam­in­ing the gap­ing hole in my stomach.

But then I’ll share that I’m halfway through school to become a holis­tic health coach and help patients just like me. I’ll share that I’m learn­ing to sing again. I’ll share that I just went on vaca­tion with my hus­band, and did­n’t step foot in a hospital.

In this new sea­son, I will share that I am thir­ty. And flir­ty. And thriv­ing.