Goodbye 20s

x10.

This morning I woke up 30 years old. Well if I'm being honest, I went to sleep last night (errr, very early this morning?) 30 years old. As a wise blogger once said, I've "become 30." It's funny, turning one of these "milestone ages", because people expect you to feel something about it, or to at least pause and reflect. Thankfully, I'm quite the feeler and reflector...

Looking back, my 20s were a roller coaster of epic proportions... I spent whole years living in a fantasy of friendship, fun and adventure (GDub!) and other years truly struggling to move forward towards the person my younger self felt certain I was supposed to become. I'd like to think that with every decade a person is fortunate enough to live, he/she can look back and be proud of the 10 years that went by, but I'm going to come out and make the bold statement that your 20s might be your most defining decade. My 20s taught me the incredible value of friendship, the importance of cherishing loved ones and how to cope with tremendous loss. My 20s taught me how to not get what I want, how to keep fighting for what I want and how to have confidence throughout the journey. My 20s taught me to suck it up and let it go and to get comfortable in my own skin. My 20s turned my parents and sister into my closest friends and a random guy I met at 18 into the love of my life. My 20s were a lot of hard/good/beautiful work!!

And while I'm sure my 30s will further define me, I already sense they will be different... I think (and hope!?) they will be less about me and more about all of "you". More about the family I hope to build, the relationships that fill me with love and the world I finally feel confident enough in myself to try to impact. In my 20s I did a lot of figuring things out, now I get to just "be me" and see where it all leads. And I think that sounds pretty fantastic.

The end of an era...

In the early 2000s, who didn't want a belly like Britney!?

This week I did something major. This week, after 11 years of pierced glory, I removed my belly button ring. A singular act of rebellion against my parent's wishes, the week I turned 18, I marched into Tattoo Lou's (yup) and got the piercing I'd been pining for for years (take that Mom and Dad!) I was completely satisfied with the decision from the moment I made it; I was just the kind of girl who rocked the subtle, sparkle of a belly button ring. Over the years I endured questions (my babysitting clientele always had trouble wrapping their little brains around an earring there!), commentary ("you still have that metal thing in your stomach?" - Nanny, every time I went to her pool in Florida) and indifference (my girls would often remark, even years after I got pierced "I always forget you have a belly button ring!") But a few month ago, when I'd removed my belly bling because its protrusion was highly noticeable through the dress I was wearing, I glanced in the mirror and saw what my stomach looked like without the jewelry I'd become accustomed to seeing there. I thought "that looks.. kinda... good". I contemplated my next move for weeks, finally deciding that at the end of the summer (after bathing suit season, to give the hole time to close up) I would remove the ring forever. Fast forward to yesterday when, after having removed the ring for a dress on Tuesday, I realized I'd never put it back in. For those of you not in the know on these things, a belly piercing closes up fast and I realized it might actually hurt to try to put the ring back in... given how close I was to my personal bye bye belly ring day, I decided to not even try. It felt like the universe was sending me a sign... It was time. 

This morning, as I inspected the tiny empty hole above my belly button, I felt a little bit... sad? "Did I make a mistake taking it out!? Should I try to shove the ring back in there just for this weekend!?!" Because even though I know that belly button rings are not the height of trendiness, class or glamour, I liked having one and taking it out makes me nostalgic for a time in my life when having a belly button ring seemed perfectly reasonable. I can't pinpoint why exactly I don't feel that way anymore (maybe it's just that when I really looked at my tummy sans ring, it seemed flatter without a piece of metal poking out?!) but something about the piercing suddenly just seemed done. So goodbye belly button bling... we had a great run. I'll miss you every time I'm in a bathing suit and sporting just a little less sparkle.