My birthday is coming up next month and for some reason as this particular birthday approaches I feel old.  This is the year I turn 30+5. That’s what I’ve decided to refer to it as, 30+5, because the actual combination of the numbers is just too much for me right now.

I think I have been conditioned by those random surveys and questionnaires where you have to pick an age group to believe that 35 puts me in a different, older category.  You know the ones I am talking about:

Are you:

a) 18-24

b) 25-34

c) 35-44

and so on and so forth.

Now, I know that there are many of you who are more mature than me (both chronologically and just in mental state) who are currently scoffing at me.  I get it, I do, but please, just for a moment, bare with me and let me process this.

It is time for me to accept the fact that I am closer to 40 than 20.  I can’t pass for a college student anymore. I find myself wondering if this is the year I need to stop wearing a bikini and start investing in a more intense night cream.  My husband bought me a new phone for Mother’s Day. It was a very nice gift. It has a great camera, so now I can take even better pictures of all those cute kids we produced.  The problem is that the great camera also takes more crisp photos of me…I think I liked the details a little more blurry.

It has occurred to me that 20 years ago I was finishing my freshman year of high school.  20! Two full decades! And my high school self would definitely have viewed me as a full fledged adult.  I have 3 children for goodness sakes! It still baffles me that God found it appropriate to entrust me with all of them. And now two of them are actually old enough to be in school.  For 6 hours a day we release them out into the world to not only learn, but also to represent us and all those hours of parenting we have put in so far. It’s terrifying.

I am much more comfortable feeling responsible for the child who is still at home.  She eats, she sleeps, she poops, she is just barely mobile, and she does not yet say anything intelligible.  I got this. I can adult enough to take on all those things. I am totally comfortable being my child’s one stop feeding and butt wiping shop.  But the other two kids – they ask questions about things – big things. They build relationships and make choices. A few months ago my 7 year old told me he had been awake at night wondering “What if God just left the world empty?  Why did He choose to create people?” I may have to go back to school to get a doctorate in theology and philosophy just to answer the questions he starts asking by the time he is 10.

Am I really adult enough to take this on?  I guess so.

After all I’m about to be 30+5.