A Friday Evening Before a Birthday in Your 30s

Here I am again, turning another year older. It is 8 o'clock on Friday night and the one thing I would really like to do is go to bed soon. Hello 31. And probably having two kids, one of which is still a newborn. Many things have happened in the last year, many changes. Moved from Arkansas to Mississippi. Bought a house in yet another state. Had another daughter. Retired. Became the one thing I never thought I would be - a stay at home mom. Got a puppy, again.
And many more changes expected in the year to come. Moving to yet another state, to that house we just closed on. Trading apartment living for beach townhouse living. New job for my husband. Hopefully, new friends for all of us.

Hello 31.

Transitions

Growing up moving, what felt like constantly, and then being in the military for almost 12 years, I am quite used to transitions, change, moving, not knowing what is over the horizon. But the transition I am currently in is feeling like it is rocking my world. 6 days ago I medically retired from the Air Force. And this week I have been transitioning.

That means so many things as far as logistics, things like transferring medical benefits, getting different ID cards, working out retirement/VA pay, changing life insurance, dental insurance, and what has felt like an endless to-do list so that life can continue relatively normally. Those things are just outward "steps." Things you stand in line to accomplish and then they are done. They are transitioned. The part of transitioning that is rocking my world has little to do with Tricare beneficiary statuses or remembering to get signed up for Veterans Group Life Insurance.

It's leaving the working world behind that is starting to become difficult. Becoming a stay at home mom, a full time mom. Coming to terms with all that education, all those struggles to get to where I was as a pilot, a military officer, a highly employable, well-payed, well-trained worker bee, all of it going to what feels like waste. As I sit at home and clean up accidents from my potty-training toddler and spend afternoons trying to be as still as possible so this new human growing inside of me doesn't make me puke up my lunch, again.

It's also the transition to loneliness. We have also just moved to a new place, and gone are the easy work friendships that always develop. Gone are the adult conversations that I took for granted as a working mom. At the moment, my toddler is only just starting her vocabulary, so there aren't even toddler conversations that I can understand. My husband goes off to work and hangs out all day with his new coworkers and in his free time he talks about the new things he is learning and has these important meetings he puts aside time to do so he can study with his coworkers. My job requires no such study sessions. No such free time is coming my way. I am lucky if I get a shower when I need it. Oh, and a haircut, that hasn't happened in over a year. So, the resentment when my husband has these loads of reasons to not be around and to be doing his thing, is starting to creep in - already.

Maybe I am not cut out to be a full time mom. Or maybe I just need some more time to adjust to all of it.

Turning 30

I am turning 30 this month. That seems like a pretty big milestone, you know, for a 29 year old. It feels like this age separates the adults from the kids, but for real this time. Like you can still get away with being childishly irresponsible in your 20s, it is almost expected. But in your 30s, it just becomes sad. I have wrinkles. No really, real wrinkles. Ok, they aren't super noticeable, but they are there. And it doesn't make me sad. I earned these suckers. And not just because I should have used more moisturizer. I have worry lines and laughter lines. They have started to faintly trace their way across my forehead and along the sides of my mouth. I have scars that haven't faded away. Some from hard work and some from poor decisions. And one very large one from bringing a very special person into my life. I am turning 30, and it appears that I have proof that I have lived.

Living for Today

When I was younger, living for the moment meant something different than it does today. It usually meant making a poor decision, like having another glass of wine that I didn't need, spending more money than necessary, or eating more chocolate. Or something spontaneous, like sailing 700 miles across the Atlantic on a whim. Today it means something quite different. It means spending more time thinking about today than pondering on the future. It means letting the joy of watching my baby slowly fall asleep override the unnecessary sense of urgency for her to fall asleep now. And for this incessant planner, it means taking time to enjoy the daily moments instead of obsessively planning and dreaming about future ones.

Too Much Time in Between

So, I have this thing. They call it Crohn's Disease. It's pretty easy to look up on Google what that means, but the essence is that it is a nasty currently incurable gastrointestinal, autoimmune disease. In real life terms, that equates to my insides revolting against me. There's a whole long list of symptoms that makes life sucky - endless bathroom trips, exhaustion, stomach pain, joint pain... It gets tiring explaining it, but I suppose at the moment it is my life. Right now I am on steroids and mesalamine. They haven't worked to get me back to 100%, but it worked ok enough to try to wean off the steroid. That went horribly, and now I am prepping for my 4th colonoscopy to see how Crohn's has progressed. Today is the day before the procedure. Which means not eating (agh, I am so hungry!!) and drinking nastiness all day, but mostly this evening. This is my current view. That Gatorade is filled with nasty-grossness. Don't be fooled into thinking I am just really well hydrated. I am half way done with the nasty drink.

Tomorrow, is the big day and will hopefully tell my current GI doc what he should do about my meds to help me get better.

New dog

Got a new puppy today. Her name is Zoe. She's a mastiff mix. I think she is going to be huge. But we'll see. She is really sweet, but already quite a bit of work. Like most pups, she doesn't really like her kennel at the moment. It took her half an hour to stop crying tonight. Hopefully she'll get better sooner than later.

Our cruise

Cruising is fun. I am not sure if it is my favorite type of vacation. It is a unique experience...well compared to other vacations. The actual cruise experiences are rather cookie cutter. Seems that long time cruise vacationers have difficulty finding new things to do. Every day has similar scheduled activities and menu items are standard American buffet or restaurant fare. They do have a couple unique restaurants. For a flat cover fee you can dine there. We went to the steakhouse. The steak was impressive and the cute little appetizers and large desserts were very tasty. One aspect I'd the cruise that never fails to impress is the superb service staff. The wait staff is great at what they do and the room attendant assigned to us is amazing as well. Almost everyone we've encountered in the service department really helps make the trip.
Cruises have too many nights that require dressing up. I really dislike getting dressed up. Every now and then I forget how dumb it is and think it will be cool. Then I dress up and cannot wait to get out of the ridiculous clothes and uncomfortable shoes. We did however go to every single dress up night and an additional one at the steakhouse. Why? Well apparently the cruise saves the best dinner faire for dress-up night, which means if you want to eat anything but buffet food, you dress-up. Oh well, we changed as soon as we finished dessert. :-)
A cool thing about the cruise is it took us to 4 different islands. This was sweet. However, they pulled into and out of port on the ship's schedule, which sometimes meant early mornings. Not the coolest. But it was still nice. We drove around Nassau and Providence Island of the Bahamas for the better part of a day and found a nice beach to tan on. The water there was rather cold, probably because it was the Atlantic still, but we enjoyed watching the ocean and having fried conch at a local joint. Next stop was St. Thomas. There we went on a shore excursion that we had previously booked through the cruise line. It was a lot of fun. The catamaran took us to St. John, which is a pretty smaller island with pretty clear water and decent snorkeling. On the way back the crew raised the sails and took the scenic way back, while serving us Champagne and rum punch. We bonded more with a couple we'd met at The Alchemy, a hang out spot on the ship. We spent a good amount of our evening free time with them and also took a tour with them to the Bacardi factory in Puerto Rico. San Juan, Puerto Rico was our next stop. We got a taxi to the local rum factory and took a tour and then had lunch at a good Puerto Rican restaurant in old town San Juan. Our last stop, and one of the neatest islands, was Grand Turk. It seems to be 100% reliant on tourism, and mostly cruse tourism. It has a barrier reef that made our power snorkeling excursion very cool, and we heard made for an amazing scuba diving experience. The water was incredibly blue and clear. The only unsettling part was the barracuda that kept following us around. The island itself seemed to be falling apart quite a bit. They were still recovering from a Hurricane that hit some 4-5 years ago. I can't imagine the cost of living there. The island's main resource was its salt lakes that are no longer worked. But for a tourist, it is an ideal location to visit. The last bit of our cruise was a day at sea that we spent learning about the history and making of cocktails. We hit a storm mid-afternoon which made the ship rock quite more than normal, but the ship is so big it did little more than make walking in a straight line or standing still hilarious.