08/28/2024: The Best Years

It’s been a heck of a whirlwind this past weekend and couple of days. I started with a much needed getaway weekend with my love to celebrate turning 29, and since I’ve been back I’ve been busy getting my work ready to share with the world and it’s finally out there. 

Birthdays always feel weirder and weirder as you get older; this year it didn’t feel real. But it was really nice to go to a small town and just enjoy a little calm after being so busy. It reminded me of home, and of the good old days of the years Caleb and I spent being young and just driving around town, laughing, having fun shopping and getting late night ice cream. I always look back on those times fondly, and the nostalgia was real for me this year. 

My blog is finally refined and published, and I’ve been a ball of anxiety and excitement for the past two days. I’m glad to finally have something worth sharing, something I’ve been entertaining the idea of and working toward since last year. I wasn’t sure it would be possible then, but after some dedication and a lot of encouraging nudges, I finally got it done. Now I just have to wait and see what happens, and fulfill these new promises I’ve made to the world and just keep plugging away. 

In the midst of all these happenings, there’s been a lot going on in the lives of my friends and loved ones, and I’ve been thinking a lot about the ebbs and flows of life. I keep them all in my thoughts through all their milestones and even their losses. Thinking about this makes me want to make the most of my time with the people I love every chance I get. 

This is my first entry in a brand new journal, and as I look ahead at the empty pages, I look forward to filling them with lots of memories and new reflections as this year goes on and the next one begins. One more year until 30, I hope I’m in a good place by then, a better one than even now. Caleb jokes that I’m old now, even though he’s eight months older and his big 3-0 is this year, but I feel like I’m on the cusp of just the beginning. A lot of people say your 30’s are some of the best years, so I’ll spend this next year working hard and waiting to see if that’s really true.