A Word On Expectations

Today is the very last Monday of my 20's.  Next Saturday, I am turning 30.  Since I have been brooding/contemplating/grumbling/over-dramaticizing about this momentous occasion for at least a year and a half now, this should come as no surprise to you.  Is it dramatizing or dramaticizing?  I choose dramaticizing because it has more letters. 

Anyway.  I have seriously been dreading this date for quite a while now.  In fact, my whole 28th and 29th years were ruined because of the impending date.  Here is the problem:  for as long as I can recall, I have envisioned myself at a certain point in life when this date arrives.  It was a three-pronged plan:

First of all, 30 year-old me would have an astonishingly handsome husband who worships the ground she walks on (check there!)  Secondly, Third Decade Bethany would have a high-powered, high-paying career that is rewarding and exciting and very, very important (I'm going to give myself a check here, even though my current employment really only meets the "rewarding" criteria...thus far, the power, money, excitement and feeling of great importance elude me.)  And finally, important, rich, high-powered, blissfully married, thirty-year old Bethany was slated to have two adorable kids who never went through an ugly stage or a period of bad manners.  Everyone would adore them and wonder if a Gap commercial were being filmed every time they saw the little tykes.  And I can't say for sure, but they might have been twins.  And on this front, well... the tally in my home currently is 5 cats, 3 dogs and 0 human children. 

So what I'm saying is that I had certain expectations for this point of my life and there is a certain amount disappointment in the fact that I haven't achieved everything I had planned.  I'm sure this is a fairly common reaction to milestone birthdays.  As mentioned, I've been contemplating and perhaps obsessing over this thought for a while now.  And I'm happy to say I have made improvements in my outlook.  I have gradually let go of the whole set-in-stone plan for life.  No, I don't have kids and I want them more than anything (even more than I want a Nook).  But the fact that I don't have them does not equate to failure.  I'm getting used to the idea that life will happen when it's intended to happen, and no amount of obsessing/tantrum throwing/moping will change that. 

I'm also far more appreciative of the other two prongs of the Trifecta Of The Perfect Life At The Age of 30.  I was discussing this idea with a few ladies at my office the other day.  They laughed at me when I said that 2 out of 3 (66%) isn't so bad.  They reminded me that a good, loving husband is worth far more than the 33% that I had alotted him.  Of course they are right.  I get an automatic 85% in life just for picking the best husband anyone could ever ask for.  In addition, there is a lot to be said for having a job that I enjoy, that challenges me, that allows me to make a tiny difference in the world.  So on those two factors alone, I already score pretty high on the self-imposed scale. 

So while it's taken me two years to get myself together, I am here to say that I am ready for the big 3-0.  I am ready to embrace the day with only a small amount of dramatics and tantrums.