Thirty

Today I turn thirty. It's too big a number to just use numerals, it must be spelled out so that everyone can feel the weight of the number.

My name is Cristtin, college sophmore, mother to three, and I am thirty.

Deep Breath...

The fates have conspired against me to make sure that I never forget my thirtieth birthday.

Let's start with Thursday, a friend called, some neighborhood teenagers had lit her thrash can on fire. She had a puddle of plastic at the end of her driveway. Like most of my Army friends, her husband is not home. She needed some tools and some help to try and get this thing off her driveway. I headed over to her house and we tried to scrape, break, and pry this thing of the concrete. We just about have it up, I have been prying it up to get some leverage so she could scrape more junk. I bend over and just heft this thing up so it will start to come up. On the second lift, my back said, "Oh yeah, I'm done." I felt my lower back just contract and implode on itself. I spent the rest of the day in bed pretty much just a lump.

I wasn't able to get into my doctor so I had to go to the urgent care clinic on post Friday morning. That took about four hours. But I did get a wonderful cocktail of drugs that have kept me pretty happy since then, even through the pain.

Friday night, went out with my sister Jenny, who had come for super-fun girl's day on Saturday. We were out about two hours when the sitter calls, "Um, Bug threw up." All I could think to ask was did he make it to the toilet? He did so we didn't really rush home.

Saturday, on the other hand, did go smoothly. I had a couple friends unable to find sitters, so there were just the three of us on our trip to Nashville. Pedicures, lunch at PF Changs, and then a little shopping before it was time to head back to pick up the kids from Super Saturday. That night Jenny and I were wiped, we both were ready for bed incredibly early. I started to conk out around 9 p.m., I think the drugs are starting to build up in my system and am getting more dopey.

The big day, I wake up this morning and it hits like a ton of bricks on my chest. I am thirty.

I was going to not go to church today and just blame the back, but Bug had a talk in Primary. There was no water-pressure in the building, so they were going to let us go home early. My back was killing me from the chairs and pews that I was sitting in. Then all of a sudden the pressure was back so church is back on. I guess I must have looked really bad today because I was asked by two separate people what was wrong with me. I was so doped up that I was having trouble focusing.

Church eventually did end so I went home to get ready for the Sister missionaries to come over for dinner because I didn't want all that cake and ice cream on my hands. Turns out I didn't need to worry about that...



That would be my birthday cake. It is a lemon cake, in case you might be wondering. Did you know that if you put a cake in the oven and then walk away and it ends up baking for about two hours this happens? Well, I do. Now. The sisters thought I had baked a chocolate cake and were really surprised to find that it was in fact supposed to be yellow. We got along just fine with my birthday ice cream.

All in all I am very pleased with my birthday. This is the stuff of good stories and I am sure to not forget it. I would much rather things be memorable than go off without a hitch and just forget all about it because it was so normal.

The one thing I could've done without is the back strain. Like I needed a reminder about how much older I am than the majority of my fellow classmates. I know, let's add a cane to the picture. On Friday, I went to the college to pick up the rest of my books and they were doing some sort of Freshman tour. There were these infants every where. I was thinking about my mortality when it hit me that the average college Freshman is closer in age to my oldest son than they are to me. They were even born in the same decade, the 90's.

Born in the 90's? While they were getting potty-trained, I was freaking out about Cobain's death. While they were riding their first tricycles, I was tearing up the road in my Ford Escort. When they started kindergarten, I was learning all the rules of streaking in the middle of the night with my best friends. I will stop this line of thought now.

Speaking of best friends. My BFF stopped by my house on her move across the country. Lisa has been my best friend for almost half my life now. We became friends at Girl's camp the summer I turned 16. I was so happy to see her even if it was just for the one night.



So I better go to bed, it's a school night, after all.