30+

I get very excited when I see a thick envelope from Neiman Marcus in my mailbox. Why? Because more than once a year they send me $50.00 gift cards. The only times I eat at the Zodiac Room? When I receive my free $50.00 gift card. I have no idea why they still keep sending me this stuff. I guess my points reached some permanent club level the year I got married. They haven't noticed that my post-nuptial spending coincides more now with "Last Call" and gift cards I receive for various holidays...or my annual Christmas shopping trip with Nana. In any case, I was excited to receive a packet that said "Beauty Event" on the outside. I don't really remember them giving away free stuff in this envelope, but usually it's a good indication of what is going to be free with my purchase.

I don't really buy my beauty products at Neimans. I do have a few "luxury" items I indulge myself in every now and then. By luxury I mean a tinted moisturizer from Laura Mercier, and this one color stay lipstick thing with gloss on the other end, and sometimes something from Kiehls. I try to make those purchases coincide with the free gift bag. I then live off free samples for as long as I possibly can.

Today Neimans sent cute little cards that were the "must have" products for 20+, 30+ 40+ and 50+. I realized that smack in the middle of this event I change from a 20+ to a 30+. [Expletive!] So what does that mean? Well apparently 2 weeks from yesterday it was ok to spend "just" $65.00 on eye repair cream. 2 weeks from today I'm supposed to spend $130.00. Two weeks from yesterday I could get away with a fabulous $22.00 face wash. Two weeks from today I need to spend $250.00 on gel cream. How can one day make things so much more expensive? Ok, I'm not that big of an advertiser's dream. I am not going to rush out and spend $250.00 on face cream just because a store told me to. The point though is that there appears to be such a big distinction between where I was two weeks from yesterday, and where I will be two weeks from today! Even the advertisers know this to be true...or at least try to make me believe it!

I don't want to turn 30. A few months ago I was looking forward to it. If one more client or person asked if I was an intern or still in college I was going to scream. I felt like saying I was 30 would put them in their place...a "see, I'm old enough to be your lawyer" ha type of thing. But now, all I can think about is 30+. I'll be a 30+. What the heck is 30+? What am I supposed to be in my 30s? Who am I supposed to be in my 30s? Where am I supposed to be in my 30s?

I think I always likened 30s with adulthood. It's also natural to equate the way you grew up with the way things "should be." My parents always seemed like adults to me. They ran their own successful businesses in their late 20s and early 30s, they had children in their early 30s, they built their "dream" home in their mid-thirties, they were able to tell people what to do (my brother and myself) in their early and mid-thirties, they drove station wagons and mini-vans during their entire thirties (ok, my dad totally had a wagon with wood grain sides in his 20s), they were Mr. and Mrs. in their thirties.

I on the other hand am a renter, though I'm kind of starting my own law practice, it's a practice within a practice so it's not REALLY my own business, I drive a VW Jetta (though I have actually contemplated buying a wagon), I can't get the little Washington University School of Law sticker off the back window, I can't tell anybody what to do (I've tried it on my husband once or twice but he doesn't really appreciate it, and my brother is getting kind of old to be ordered around), I do not have children, and I cringe at the thought of anyone calling me "Mrs." instead of my first name. The only labels I ever want to hear with my name are "Judge" or "The Honorable."

So I don't even know where I should be or what I should be doing at 30+. I know I'm an adult...but adults are old...I don't feel old...except when my back goes out. People in their 30s are supposed to know what they want. I'm more confused about what I want out of life than ever. So 2 weeks from today is supposed to be different than 2 weeks from yesterday. I'm going to be a 30+. I guess the fact that it will be 10 more years until I'm a 40+ should give me a little comfort. I have at least 10 years before I have to have another birthday that gets its own greeting card section.

I suppose I am where I am because that is where God wants me to be. It would be nice to actually be ok with that! I'd also like to know who out there is responsible for telling me that I should feel or be a certain this or that by 30? I don't remember seeing that in the Bible. In early Bible times people weren't achieving great things until they were several hundred years old! It sounds like Adam and Eve were pretty young when they caused the downfall of man, so I won't look to them as examples. So who out there decided that I should not welcome 30+ with open arms? All I know is they figured out that making people feel this way would make them a lot of money! Why couldn't I have thought of that?