Turning Thirty: A Shift In Priorities

Some get old. 
Some get wise. 
Some just get old. 

Someone asked a while back just how old I was. 
I told them 24. 
Didn't blink an eye.
Time. Flies. 
In my defense, 24 was a great year. I bought a house, took in a feral mutt I named Dixie and during a trip to Texas, was introduced to Malbec wine thanks to my friend Terri. 

A few great friends (and a brother and sister-in-law) have turned thirty over the last year and I've gotten a really good laugh out of it. 
They turned 30 and quite frankly, they got old. 
Like, had back surgery and became parents, old. 
They turned as old as Tim McGraw was when he sang, "My Next Thirty Years" - that's old. 

And maybe a bit trying to hard? 

But in the last two weeks, it's hit me, hard: I will turn 30 this summer. 

I WILL TURN THIRTY THIS SUMMER. 

Does that freak anyone out as much as it does me? 
Yeah, probably not. You're not the one turning 30. 
But quite honestly, all the signs of 30 are present. 
Some tapped me on the shoulder as I entered my birthdate preparing for taxes.
Some hung around a few hours longer than they needed to on a Saturday morning after a late Friday night.
Some initiated a call to my beautician..."I want to go lighter than last time," I vainly told her, to cover up the strands of gray I'd found. 
But all signs were accounted for. 

As I walk blindly into the light that is the big 3-0, every so often I'd like to give a brief list of five things that justifies my aging this much. Do you understand that this is me justifying it?

Turning 30: Five Shifts In Priorities

1. Instead of weekend getaways to Reno and Vegas, Cody and I now align our schedules so we can both be home to breed heifers, watch heat, or to have just one of us home, in general to take care of things. We took a weekend off in March to go see George Strait in Nashville. At Tootsie's Cody looked over to me and said, "Might as well live this up. These trips - just the two of us - will begin to be few and far between."
With a smile of agreement, I gladly understood.
Kids? Nope. 
Cows. 

Old Saturday afternoons:

New Saturday afternoons:

2. I care what kind of Kleenex and toilet paper I buy. It's no longer a matter of price, its a matter of comfort. We're simply too old for Great Value. 

3. I care more about my lungs and eardrums than I do the bar we're at. If I can't see you or hear you, don't even start a tab. 

4. I bought a pair of White Mountain shoes. Which might not sound like much to you, but this signifies my recognition of the fact that my feet are an important part of my body and they require care. And so do arches. 

5. When CS and I consider a splurge, we now do mental math to reconfigure what that dinner at Flemming's would buy us, otherwise. 
"That entire night, fuel, prime steaks, drinks...that is about the cost of a new metal feed bunk"...we mentally evaluate.
We choose the feed bunk and grill out.

Priorities change, bodies change, places change, and for some reason I'm having a bit of a challenge accepting the fact that I would have started kindergarten 24 years ago. Or that in ten years I'll be forty. Or that the ads on Facebook are targeting me for wrinkle cream. 

On the bright side (because there always is one), I read somewhere that you're 26 percent less likely to make a New Year's resolution in your 30s, but if you do make one, you're 26 percent more likely to stick to it. 

Well in that case, to those lingering ten pounds: Bring. It. On.