I’m going to be 34 on Sunday.  Ask me where the last 12 years went…cause I really don’t know.  It’s amazing how the minutiae of the day-to-day can make time feel like it’s standing still, when in all actuality, didn’t it just seem like it was last summer?  My girls were a year younger, even more dependent on me…Ella was just taking her first steps at 18 months.  Charlie was 3 and so afraid of the water she wouldn’t dip one toe in the neighborhood pool.  And now, I have a walking, talking 2 year old (“Yuka, Mom, an aipane!!” – translation: “Look, Mom, an airplane!!”) and a smart and fearless 4 year old.  What happened? The other day Charlie and I had this conversation about getting older: C: Mommy, how many years are you? Me: I’ll be 34 on my birthday. C: So then, next year you’ll be 35 on your birthday? Me: Yep. C: And then, 36, 37, 38, and then 45? Me: Silence.  “Uh, not so fast there, sister!” It got me thinking.  I wonder if gals in their 20’s feel like they’ll be in their 20’s forever.  I sure did.  And although I learned a lot of valuable lessons and made life-long friendships during that decade, you couldn’t pay me a lifetime of Louis Vuittons to go back.  And yet, time sort of feels like it’s going by a little too fast for my taste. I’m going on Day 15 of my Paleo Challenge and have only gone off track a couple of times – and not even that much.  It’s going well – overall I feel great, I’m sleeping better, and am at long last back to my pre-holiday weight.  Everything feels a little tighter, less jiggly.  That’s never a bad thing. I think taking better care of myself in all ways will lead to a longer life – emotionally I am still and will always be a work-in-progress.  I think my search for acceptance has less to do with what “happened in high school” and more to do with my own hang-ups – you know, what I see when I look in the mirror vs. what other people see.  And maybe, just maybe, what other people see is really what’s true.  I think the Devil will constantly prey on those insecurities, if I let him.  If I were better at keeping myself spiritually fed I might be able to fight it in a more constructive and healthy way.  I know the Lord knows where my heart is, but I don’t do a very good job of maintaining my relationship with Him.  This is definitely an area I can improve on in my 34th year.  Filling my heart and my life with things of good and not of evil, surrounding myself with friends who lift me up and don’t tear me down…giving myself a lot of grace and giving it all up each and everyday.    And so, as I look at myself in the mirror as I turn 34, I will try not to notice the teeny lines that have all of a sudden popped up around my mouth and the fact that my skin doesn’t bounce back like it did when I was 22.  And it will be ok – because that’s just life – and what can you do but embrace each year and celebrate the things you’ve learned and the people you’ve loved?  That might be a better use of my time than sitting on my sink, examining my pores for 45 minutes while I sing Lady Gaga songs and flip through catalogs – Whaaat?  (Cause you know, even when you are no longer single you still have Secret Single Behavior.  Carrie Bradshaw admitted it.  It’s time we all did, no?) So here’s to 34, and all of its ups and downs.  May it bring me closer to the woman I truly want to be.