I'm 30 but I feel 90?????

I truly was looking forward to turning 30. I felt it was a much needed step into adulthood. I feel like nobody takes you seriously in your our 20's. I have a memory of my mother turning 30, and I remember it being traumatic for her. I don't remember why. I just remember telling myself, wow I can't wait until I'm 30. I've continued to feel that way, until the last month or so.

It's not really the 30 thing that's haunting me, its this place where I have found myself at 30. I guess I expected more, and for a while I saw myself heading in the right direction. But as soon as I was embracing where my life was heading, my direction veered dramatically. I am now realizing my unfulfilled dreams and what 30 is really going to be, I have started to feel my own little mini-mid life crisis begin to kick in.

Call me selfish. Call me immature. Tell me to grow up. I need to hear it, I tell it to myself every day. I spent three wonderful years as a stay at home mom, discovering a wonderful life raising my beautiful daughter and discovering a piece of my soul I didn't know existed. What I like to think of as my free spirit.

When most of us think of a free spirit, we think of someone with little or no inhibitions. Definitely not me. But when I think of who I was, anal retentive, always worrying, always wanting to do what was right, always having order, never finding true joy, always controlling, unable to give into creativity, oh, so judgemental, and never willing to take risks; and who I found, someone just a little lazy, able to accept others, full of creativity, an entrepreneur, full of energy, passion, compassion, service--I feel I found my free spirit.

This free spirit I formed I now feel must be boxed up and saved for a later time. Its almost as though I have been watching this part of me slowly die this summer, knowing that when I go back to work, this semi-charmed life I had been living will quietly disappear, and be replaced with over scheduling and lots more worrying.

I will now throw a temper tantrum. I want more babies. I want to stay home. I want to take afternoon naps snuggled up with a little one. I want to read stories. I want to procrastinate my housework, till just before my husband comes home. I want to worry about, my cups facing up or down, I want to go to playgroup. I want to sew, and sew, and sew and sew. I don't want to let this stage of my life go just yet.

So, you see 30 has taken a very different turn. Last year, when I was standing at 29 facing 30-- I would not have expected to be writing this post. I wanted this to be a year to embrace my free spirit, not to bury it.

I must admit, I feel truly overwhelmed by the responsibilities that lay in front of me. How do I juggle being:
1. A mother of a school age child
2. A wife of an unemployed entrepreneur/Young Men's counselor
3. A counselor in the relief society
4. An 8th grade teacher
5. An oldest child
6. Someone who's got her crap together

So, 30, here I am chew me up, spit me out. I'm well aware that next year I things could be dramatically different. I'm facing a whole other world full of new unknowns. What will it be like, and who will I be when I come out on the other side?

I know I'm 30, but really I feel 90!

p.s. I truly am grateful for all that I have been blessed with. It's just so hard to face change sometimes, especially when you really liked who/what you are-- for once in your life.

p.p.s. San Antonio was a dream come true. I'll be posting soon!