30 Something Prose

30 Something was a show on television I remember my mother watching when I was young...and she was 30 something. She is now 50 something, and I find myself nearing the 30's.
I keep hearing nothing but wonderful things about 30 something.
 Please, don't judge the lack of grammar or correct punctuation, the lack of order in thought or the emotional canvass. I am not trying to impress, which is, in part, a part of the 30's, I hear.

Ironically the only time I have never been self-conscious in a bathing suit was this past summer. I had an almost two-year-old boy and was 8 months pregnant. And for the first time, I really didn't give a hoot about the cover-up. That day was about playing in the pool and being stained by the sun...finally.

For many reasons, the last few months have had my head swimming with the most haunting question, perhaps, that all humans face in their lifetime: "What if?"

I have thought about my childhood friendships and all that they taught me. Becky, on Lafayette, well bless her heart. I taught her how to climb a tree only to leave her there once the street lights came on; and, she was still my friend the next day. I thought about my dog. It made me cry, actually, when I realized he had probably died years and years ago. Our brains rationalize, don't they? Why wouldn't I, at the mature age of almost 30, have realized my dog probably died?

 I believe that God let that dog live through being hit by a truck, eating a bag of poison so his blood became so thick it wouldn't even move through his body, and getting stung by an entire wasps nest. I repeat, he lived. And back to my believing...well, I believe that God let that dog live because he was the only thing constant about my childhood. My dog. My dog was, in the end, the only thing that stayed the same...until my parents got rid of him when I was in middle school, which, made sense. Anyway, he died. It made me sad to almost 30 something realize that death is a part of everyone's life.
Maybe that's it. Maybe it's the realization that I am not immortal. Well, I am, but not in the physical sense. I think the realization, the deep-down knowing that I, too, will die, like so many close to me have...well, it makes you wonder what the heck you are doing today.

I know it's just a birthday. I know it's a wonderful birthday. I don't know why, I guess, this one seems like the first, and possibly, the only birthday that should really count for something.

I want my children to know what God taught me in my generation and those that went before them. I want to know why the world is going paperless; and, I want to know why I have a growing passion to remain the woman with a wax seal on my longhand letters, record player and tobacco pipe. I want my children to know that there is one-true-God and that believing that will offend many people. I want them to know that it was not their mother that said so, but rather, Jesus Christ himself.
I want my children to know what their great-grandparents were like, the America they fought for,  and the importance of living diligently and sober minded. I want my children to know the importance of working hard and sleeping hard...sometimes with sand on your feet if you get the chance. In fact, sleep with sand on your feet every chance you get.
I don't know...but 30 something feels like a new life both in a daunting and a glorious way.
Perhaps you can relate...

It feels like a crowded street in a rain storm, the way my mind has  been reeling the last few weeks. It's as though you recognize every face and recall every story attached to them...but in the end, you can see the aerial view of black umbrellas and you want to be the red one...

Amidst 30 black umbrellas, you want to be the red.
I hope that I am the red umbrella.