life lessons + a count down

So I was getting some things together the other day to make a homemade project for my son's birthday party in November. I stopped for a second to think about the fact that time has gone by so fast, and in less than 3 months, my little joy will already be a year old. How can that be? That's when it hit me. Just a month after that party, we will be celebrating another birthday. One that came all too soon.

My 30th.

When did this happen?

I remember being a child and hearing my friends talk about their thirty year old parents, and how OLD I felt like they were. I remember it like it was yesterday. I just cringe thinking of that now.

Thirty can't be old.

I have no aches or pains. I've still got creativity and inspiration running through my veins. I've got a sweet little family that I can't wait to spend time with every day. I've got a husband that still refers to me as his "hot wife" and a son that thinks I'm the funniest person on the planet. I've got friends that want to come over to play board games so we can all make fools of ourselves. And I've got the love of a God that will never leave me nor forsake me.

I haven't gotten old.

I've ARRIVED.

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So to ease into this phase of my life a little more than I could have, I'm going to be sharing with you a countdown. Of things I've learned in my years as a 20-something, and experiences that I have had, both good and bad. The last 9 years of my life have been wonderful, but when that birthday rolls around in a few months, I want to say goodbye to my twenties with sentiment and love and welcome my thirties with confidence and anticipation. As far as happiness goes, something tells me I've got far more to look forward to, then anything I'm leaving behind.

So let me start with TWENTY.

{Taken at one of my brother's concerts in Waco, Tx / with my friend Amy}

My second/third year of college. I was learning hard lessons about moving out of a small town. You see, in a small town, you feel like everyone knows you. You are trapped in such a bubble, that a lot of times, you feel like everyone actually cares about every little thing you do. You get wrapped up in yourself. At least, I did.

But believe me, you get one big reality check when you move off to a new city. With new people, who not only do not know you, but do not care who you were and where you came from. They don't care if you were class president or head cheerleader. They don't care who your parents are, or what kind of grades you made. This realization was probably the best thing that could have ever happened to me. It humbled me. It was hard at the time, but all for the best.

I started to see that there will always be people smarter than I am. More athletic than I am. Funnier than I am. Prettier than I am. More creative than I am. Healthier than I am.

And what I had to learn the hard way is that,  IT'S OK.

Life is not a competition.

Unfortunately, a lot of women don't learn this lesson until they are far out of their twenties.

And it was something that I definitely wasn't going to learn in high school. You see, there was this one girl. I had known her since we were probably about 3 or 4 years old because of our t-ball teams. And we started out as friends. But somewhere along the way, we started competing. I'm not sure why. We took each others' friends. We took each others' boyfriends. We always tried to be better than the other one at everything. And if we weren't, we would just act as if we didn't care about that certain thing at all. "Well you go be good at that, because I don't even like that!" ... Ha. Who were we fooling? Only ourselves, I think.

In the last few years, I have reconnected with this person, and I can tell you, because of my own insecurity, jealousy, and need to be "better than the rest", I missed out on years of a great friendship.

And it's all so sad to look back at all of our disagreements in High School and know that if only we could have popped the small town bubble we were living in, we could have been really great friends. I'm so excited now that we have grown up and gotten together to catch up on what has been going on in our lives. I really enjoy being around her, she makes me laugh a ton!

{Reunion w/ my very first friends in May} 

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The lesson I had to learn at age twenty was a hard one.

And it sure took me long enough to learn it:

Rejoice in the success of others. You don't have to match it. Your success will always be different than someone else's. I see that now. How good I was at art and sports and all of that other junk make no difference now. What matters is that I genuinely care about the well being of others. No matter what kind of beef we have had in our past, I want to know that people are happy. And loved. And have a friend in me. A true friend. That they could call any time, day or night.

Because what makes me successful is not where I'm from. It's not some silly crown I won because a handful of people voted for me.

What makes me successful is where I'm going. And the crown I get to wear when I get there.

{2 Timothy 4:8}