Dear 20's

Dear 20's,

As I started thinking about you I realized that birthday #30 is really the first birthday of reflection. When I turned 10 I was super excited. No longer a child, but not quite a teenager, I was living in the here and now and quite happy to be 10. Of course at 20 everyone is looking forward, scoffing at their teen years and ready to be an "adult" and live it up during the roaring 20s! Always looking forward. Now as I turn 30 in less than 2 hours I am very happy to look back and appreciate the last 10 years and what they have meant to me. And WOW, what a crazy/busy/exciting/scary/wonderful 10 years it has been!

I have done way more than I ever thought possible. I have learned about myself and become confident and happy with who I am - and MAN that was a major accomplishment for me! I met my husband, welcomed a nephew and three nieces into the world, moved approximately seven times and about 2,00 total miles, experienced three proposals, two defenses and a wedding, followed a dream that lead to a few nightmares but is ultimately coming to a satisfying end.

I learned to love to cook, tried to learn to be more organized (although I still fail regularly), talked my husband into buying a house that gave me "warm fuzzies" that sometimes makes me want to take those warm fuzzies and squish them....but not most of the time. :) I started sharing that adventure with the world and a few people have come along for the ride.

I have added so many AMAZING people to my life that I truly count myself blessed to be loved and supported by so many great people. I went from having a few close friends in one small area to have many very close friends who are spread across the US! I worked a job that I hated and a job that I LOVED. Considered becoming a nurse, learning to draw someone's blood, following my plan to be a psychologist and still question myself regularly if that was the right decision or not. (I think it is, I still hate wounds.) I've had supervisors that I...um...yeah...and supervisors that I LOVED!

I have done crazy things just for the adventure - Black Friday starting at midnight, 1am, 4am and 5am just depending on the year, camping out overnight in the bone-chilling cold with my best friends to secure my wedding spot, fighting off crowd of crazed brides to be with my best friends to go wedding dress shopping(?) - Life is SERIOUSLY not about the destination, and MAN have I loved the journey so far!!

I have watched more hours of HGTV than I care to count, become friends with 50+ "book club girls...", spilled the contents of a crock pot in my car twice, traded in my tennis shoes and jeans for heels and skirts, mourned a Jayhawk Championship loss and celebrated an AMAZING Championship WIN! I didn't get into graduate school twice and got my first pick on internship. I learned how to sew, sand, grout, route, paint, drill, and lots more of that stuff. I have traveled to Florence, Rome, Venice, Pisa, Siena, Paris and back to Rome.

I'd write more but I'm almost out of the 20's and into the 30's, and this almost 30 year old needs to go to bed for a long day tomorrow. Dear 20's, you were great. I'm ready for your older, more sophisticated sister the 30's. Only exciting things to come, a real job (maybe?), I'll get to meet my future children, the first time someone calls me Dr. Kari and it's for real, total freedom, and maybe even a tattoo. I'm not packing it in 30, you don't scare me, I'm ready!!

Love, Kari