Invincible

For a year I’ve been trying to figure out what 30 was or is. Something changed. I just haven’t been able to put my finger on it. 

I keep describing it as the year when I learned that I wasn’t invincible.  But that isn’t a good description.  At no point in life have I thought that I was a superhero or even resembled one.  This word has just been the only one to encompass what I was feeling.  Finally this morning I feel like I have more. 

See, I live in a dream world.  I do.  But I like it here.  It’s beautiful.  I grew up believing that I could go anywhere, do anything, and be anything.   The world is my oyster, I just have to figure out how to make it happen.  Sure there have been setbacks in life.  There have been forks in the road that have all but killed this grandeur within me.  I think those are the moments when people stop, when they give up. The world isn’t what they were told as a child and they begin to live in the reality of what it is.  It becomes a place where you simply survive.  I’ve been there too.  But I’ve learned to fight for my joy, even when it no longer comes on it’s own.  I’d love to take credit for this but it’s not me.  It’s so far beyond me and all that I am and all that I’m not.  It’s what carries me and sustains me when I have nothing left and surrender this life on my knees.  It’s what fights when I give up the fight.  I’ve almost let it go, stopped seeking, stopped fighting, but without it, I am nothing.  And I think that’s where a lot of people get lost, and make their home.

Despite those forks in the road, for the most part, my 30 years have allowed me to stay in this dream bubble that I carry around. I’ve never had any health problems.  I’ve never even been hurt.  I’ve jumped from airplanes, snowboarded mtns, played sports at a collegiate level, scuba dived beautiful reefs, climbed world renowned rocks, surfed Australian oceans, paddled rivers dividing countries and swam beneath foreign waterfalls.  My body has always worked with me and together we can do anything.  And despite some unreconciled random photographs that keep popping up from college, I’ve never needed to do much to keep myself in shape.  My lifestyle just goes along with who I am.  I know that I can do anything that I set my mind to.  If I don't know how how then I'll figure it out.  I’ve taken the opportunities and adventures placed before me and ventured far beyond where life is safe or comfortable.  I see this world as a place to explore and learn and grow.

Then 30 happened.  I think I keep describing this year as "realizing that I’m not invincible" because I can feel outside factors trying to burst this bubble that I live in and showing me the realities of this life that I haven't been shown yet. My knees are starting to crack like I’m made of brittle now and all of a sudden being a state track superstar as a kid is leaving me with a lifetime supply of knee cream. I swear I gained 3 lbs the day I turned 30 and I’m pretty sure that nachos can no longer be my favorite food.   Besides my body beginning to reflect my age for the first time in my life, I also see the world trying to steal something from me that I think a part of me is starting to give away.  

I haven’t gotten married and I don't have kids.  That’s not the path that my life has taken.  And where I would usually spend my days dreaming of the non-profit I am going to create to save the world or the fascinating lands that I have yet to see, I'm 30 and those things haven't happened yet.  And all of a sudden I'm beginning to wonder if I missed my chance.  Although life doesn’t look that much different to me now than it did at 25, I think even within my dream world, a part of me stopped dreaming and started to settle in.  I don’t think there is a fiber in my being that knows what “settle in” means, but somehow I feel it happening.  Something, somewhere along the way silently told me that you make the big changes in the world and become somebody in your 20’s and in your 30’s you quit asking yourself what you want to be when you grow up and you just live within it.

It’s taken me 11 months to put my finger on this; to figure out what this suffocating feeling is that I've carried around since the day I turned 30.  And now here I am this morning with really sore muscles from a 15 min run that I got smoked on and thinking about how I need to lose a few pounds.   

I let myself settle in to life before I knew what was happening.  I let life happen instead of making life happen.  I think it becomes easier and easier for this to happen as we get older.  This is a new phenomenon to me, because I still wake up everyday asking myself how I can make today the best day of my life. 

I’m not okay with just letting life happen anymore.  I stepped into a new phase of life this year.  It’s not just a number.  It feels different.  With one month before I turn 31, I’m grateful to put some words to this overwhelming weight that I’ve been carrying around.  I’m ready to replace it with new dreams, new adventures, more movement and creativity.  I’m not near done yet.  I’m just done settling in.  I know now that I'll have to fight harder to dream as the world I live in gets older with me.  But I also know that I have a wildly beautiful life yet to live and see.