99
(happy birthday to me?)


so, i didn't make it. not even to my amended goal. my 100th post will have to come later this week. either thursday or friday when i close the store and have some time to spend online in the morning. and so, this morning, i make number 99.

i woke up this morning and i was 30. i have been building this up in my head for months now. the big 3-0. 30. thirty. not in my twenties. 30. i woke up this morning and you know how i felt?

... awake. not sore. not creaky. not old. not like i had one foot in the grave. no headache. almost fully recovered from my cold of the last ten days. i felt...pretty. damn. good??? that's not what it's like, is it? turning 30, that is. of all my birthdays, i should feel older today. but i don't. i feel really, really good. now granted, we didn't play softball last week. so, i have had two weeks to recover from our epic doubleheader now. if my birthday was last monday, i think i would've felt 30. in a couple weeks when we get started playing basketball again, when i run up and down a basketball court for the first time in nine months, i am going to feel 30. but not today.

today, i woke up and my body wouldn't let me go back to sleep. today, i walked downstairs and my precious, beautiful little girl was coloring a birthday card for me. today, i've already heard voices of people wishing my day well. i've read an e-mail already doing the same. today, i am going to have lunch with a couple of old friends. tonight, thanks to my wonderful, doctor (thus, ending the suspense from last monday's entry) of a wife, i get to have dinner with a bunch of folks from my "sunday school class" and their families. tonight, i will eat, drink, and be merry. and monday night football will play in the background as the theme music. that couldn't be any more me!!!

no, today looks like it is going to be a good day. maybe even a great one. one that will go by way too fast in order for the world to prove that tomorrow can find a way to take the luster off of any good today. but today, i am going to enjoy being 30. and maybe, just maybe, i'll even try and own it the way some of my closest friends already have. no, today i do not have to defend any dissertations or take any big tests, but just by waking up this morning, i've earned, in a way, a pretty serious badge of honor.

me:

"hi there. this is my wife, dr. sarah o'kelley."

sarah:

"hi there. this is my husband, kevin. he's 30."

damn straight.