In a couple of weeks I’ll be turning 29. Yes, actually 29 (I’m not using that as a cover up for a higher age). And at the risk of sounding completely ridiculous, I’d like to say that coming to the realization that I’ll be 29 soon has really thrown me for a loop. It’s made me feel like I’m running out of time.
You see, 29 is only one year away from 30. And it’s not that I consider 30 old (because I don’t). It’s just that 30 is definitely adult. Being in my twenties means I’m still in my youth. 30 means I’m entering the middle years. You’d think getting married or having two children or getting a job or buying a house or any adulty thing like those would make me feel like an adult. But they haven’t. So turning 29 means I have one year left of “being young”. That’s it. One year.
And it’s really gotten me thinking about what I’ve done with my life. What have I done that has real meaning? What have I done to live out the gospel? To make a difference in this world? What have I done in my youth that is worth anything? You see, this is my greatest fear too:
Our greatest fear should not be of failure but of succeeding at things in life that don’t really matter.”
― Francis Chan, Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God
I feel an urgency that I didn’t feel before. An urgency to get out of my comfort zone. An urgency to make my thirties even better than my twenties…and the forties even better than that…and so on and so on. I want to reframe my way of thinking. I want to prepare myself for this coming decade and beyond so that I don’t have to look back and wonder where my life went.
So I’ll spend this last year of my twenties changing diapers and smelling like spit up (and loving every minute of it). And I’ll spend it thinking and planning for the future. But I’ll also spend it just living. The last year of my youth will not just pass me by.
(Ok. You can tell me I’m ridiculous now.)