{"id":42,"date":"2012-03-06T19:36:00","date_gmt":"2012-03-06T19:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/almostjuliet.com\/index.php\/2012\/03\/34\/"},"modified":"2018-04-21T17:22:22","modified_gmt":"2018-04-21T17:22:22","slug":"34","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/almostjuliet.com\/index.php\/2012\/03\/34\/","title":{"rendered":"34."},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m going to be 34 on Sunday.  Ask me where the last 12 years went\u2026cause I really don\u2019t know.  It\u2019s amazing how the minutiae of the day-to-day can make time feel like it\u2019s standing still, when in all actuality, didn\u2019t it just seem like it was last summer?  My girls were a year younger, even more dependent on me\u2026Ella was just taking her first steps at 18 months.  Charlie was 3 and so afraid of the water she wouldn\u2019t dip one toe in the neighborhood pool.  And now, I have a walking, talking 2 year old (\u201cYuka, Mom, an aipane!!\u201d \u2013 translation: \u201cLook, Mom, an airplane!!\u201d) 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\u2019ll be 34 on my birthday. C: So then, next year you\u2019ll be 35 on your birthday? Me: Yep. C: And then, 36, 37, 38, and then 45? Me: Silence.  \u201cUh, not so fast there, sister!\u201d It got me thinking.  I wonder if gals in their 20\u2019s feel like they\u2019ll be in their 20\u2019s forever.  I sure did.  And although I learned a lot of valuable lessons and made life-long friendships during that decade, you couldn\u2019t pay me a lifetime of Louis Vuittons to go back.  And yet, time sort of feels like it\u2019s going by a little too fast for my taste. I\u2019m going on Day 15 of my Paleo Challenge and have only gone off track a couple of times \u2013 and not even that much.  It\u2019s going well \u2013 overall I feel great, I\u2019m sleeping better, and am at long last back to my pre-holiday weight.  Everything feels a little tighter, less jiggly.  That\u2019s never a bad thing. I think taking better care of myself in all ways will lead to a longer life \u2013 emotionally I am still and will always be a work-in-progress.  I think my search for acceptance has less to do with what \u201chappened in high school\u201d and more to do with my own hang-ups \u2013 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\u2019s 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\u2019t 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\u2019t tear me down\u2026giving 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\u2019t bounce back like it did when I was 22.  And it will be ok \u2013 because that\u2019s just life \u2013 and what can you do but embrace each year and celebrate the things you\u2019ve learned and the people you\u2019ve 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 \u2013 Whaaat?  (Cause you know, even when you are no longer single you still have Secret Single Behavior<\/a>.  Carrie Bradshaw admitted it.  It\u2019s time we all did, no?) So here\u2019s to 34, and all of its ups and downs.  May it bring me closer to the woman I truly want to be. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m going to be 34 on Sunday.  Ask me where the last 12 years went\u2026cause I really don\u2019t know.  It\u2019s amazing how the minutiae of the day-to-day can make time feel like it\u2019s standing still, when in all actuality, didn\u2019t it just seem like it was last summer?  My girls were a year younger, even […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/almostjuliet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/almostjuliet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/almostjuliet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/almostjuliet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/almostjuliet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/almostjuliet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1162,"href":"https:\/\/almostjuliet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42\/revisions\/1162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/almostjuliet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/almostjuliet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/almostjuliet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}