The bright blue digital numbers cut through the dark that nightfall had brought over the room. That last number on the face of his nightstand clock, hovering at 9 for what seemed like an eternity, clicked through the seconds until 10:30 greeted me brightly. I stood from the rocking chair where my eleven week old snuggled his way into a deep sleep in my arms and I transferred the limp weight of a dreamer onto the waiting gray sheets dotted with happy white elephants in our littlest’s crib.
“I only have an hour and a half left,” my mind frantically thought as I edited through ideas of where I could go. I was half a step out the door and into the car, headed somewhere last minute and random… to the beach most likely, before I turned back around. I wanted to make something special happen, create a moment, celebrate the last few minutes of my twenties in an extraordinary and significant place… like where the sand recedes under the vast ocean lapping over it.
While my first instinct was to run to find it, the second wave of thoughts, more lucid this time, brought with it the realization that it was there in front of me, my ordinarily extraordinary and significant place, wrapped in the sounds of a house of sleeping wee ones, my three wee ones, and cuddled in the arms of the one who I’ve fallen in love with over and over these past ten years. So I settled in, in to those arms and into this new season of life. Exhaling my Decade of Twenty with each breath as the minutes added up and the clock simultaneously counted down. And yeah, I didn’t even last until midnight before I joined the rest of the house in dreamland.
I woke up the next morning with my twenties happily packed away in their own special book, full of chapters of laughter and tears, heartache and amazing joys, with the pains of loss and the pains of childbirth, with the rewards of accomplishment and the biggest unconditional love that comes from the smallest of arms, with the personal growth that comes in learning how to teach others to grow, develop and become the very best version of yourself (that last one I’m still learning).
That morning a new book began, a blank slate with so many pages and chapters waiting to be written, The Decade of Thirty, and I very much believe it’s going to be a good one. I went to sleep that night, having made a wish over dinner with the love of my life, and realizing that so many of my dreams, my wishes, have already come true.
Adrienne says
Biggest of hugs to you. My {perhaps} overly ambitious gift isn’t quite finished yet…but it does fit with the whole “book closing” and “opening” idea! It’ll get there…eventually!
Becky says
beautifully put 🙂
Sarah Halstead says
Love this. Beautiful photos too!
Susi says
Love the pictures. Enjoy this next decade!!!
Elizabeth Williams says
So beautiful Tabitha and a very HAPPY belated birthday to you!! (I’ll be joining you in the decade in December 🙂 What a journey all by His grace and love for us. Thank you for continuing to be open with us readers, always an encouraging read and dawling you look fabulous!!! 🙂
Kelly says
Happy Birthday to you! 30 looks good on you.