Turning 33 : Birthday Thoughts and Things
I entered my thirties on a reclaimed high, I was glad to salute my twenties and never look back. I had a beautiful six week old boy thriving and alive, my husband was amazing, supportive and attending despite how exhausted we both felt and we were living in a house we had bought just four months prior. Life really was beautiful. There was no big party, we decided we would wait and do something around my half birthday. I took a sitz bath with some kind of magical potioned face mask, drank my nightly Mothers Milk tea and water. I read a book and went to bed with a cozy babe next to me. Six months later would be fun, we’d gather people at our home and combine my birthday celebration with a mini-housewarming party. But six months came and it was April of 2020. We realized, with the rest of the world, a party of any kind was not in the cards. I was crushed. This is when I decided I needed to switch my birthday expectations. Or maybe my expectations around life in general.
I once had a friend tell me when she turned 30, she stopped caring what people thought of her. I am eight years younger than her so I eagerly waited, for years, for the day I too would no longer mind what people thought of me.
Welp. The day came and passed and I still cared, damn. However something else has slowly changed, I began to observe how emotional or rather how tightly my emotions were tied to my expectations. They could be situations, events, or people - my feelings and mood were highly correlated to how it went, according to or apart from my plan.
For relationships, setting realistic expectations has been subjective and has been a dance to navigate. It can change based on the relationship I have with someone, the context of our history and the patterns of our communication. Looking back on my relationships in my teens and twenties, a great deal of hurt or miscommunication boiled down to unmet or poorly stated expectations.
Whether that be with friends, family members, coworkers, roommates, etc. In a way expectations are a way to help define boundaries for yourself and the other person.
As for events like birthdays, trips, weddings, friend reunions, etc., I have learned the best rule of thumb is to go into it with neutral expectations. I always think of the Nickelodeon show Doug. Before having a tough conversation or fixing a problem, the protagonist, Doug, would imagine a best case scenario and a worse case scenario. The extreme examples were fictional and hilarious and nothing like what actually happens in the end of the episode, which ends up being something very Goldilocks and in the middle. Life rarely takes fictional plot twists and that’s a good thing.
I don’t set low or zero expectations, the beauty of time and getting old is you become realistic and my realism has allowed me to set better expectations for life and people.
And for the times that I still swing and miss completely, and an expectation I had is bowled over and I see myself feeling anger, shame, hurt - time, again has helped me to slow and observe what I’m feeling. I wish I could go back to my younger self and let her see her reactions were not entirely wrong, they just came from misguided expectations. Also, her emotions in that moment were not identity defining. I wish I could go back and let her know she had zero control over other people’s feelings and opinions, you truly can’t control that stuff. Hopefully I’m setting up a soft ball here but the point is, I didn’t see how much control played into expectations.
Which brings me to my 33rd birthday. What have I learned so far in this decade? (Other than a two week lockdown could translate into a two+ year long pandemic? Talk about a plot twist… I mean come on.) Well, I have learned to look back on my younger self with much softer eyes. My teens and twenties were fraught with failure. Chalked full of shame, crippling fear of man (fearing what people thought of me), and low self-esteem. It is sad how common a theme this is when I talk to friends and read memoirs or listen to podcasts. It is a time for learning and the expectation for failure should be met with bravery, not shame. But I did not know this. I didn’t know how to care for myself, how to comfort her or know her feelings.
My mindset around my younger self shifted after having Hudson. I began to understand what being gentle to myself would look like. If I had the patience and love to walk slowly next to a stumbling and strong-willed 18 month old, I had the patience to walk with my past self. Her messiness is what helped shape me so what is there to fear? But control, that pesky little friend that still knocks at my heart hourly? Well, I have had a couple conversations with friends around turning 33 and in a non-ironic tone, Jesus’ age at crucifixion has been brought up.
The first time it came up I bristled because for some reason I equate his death with perfection and thus I should be closer to perfection? If that doesn’t show you broken theology, I don’t know what will. But as other conversations surfaced and blended together I realized something profound. God gave Jesus 33 years Earth-side, that was the length of his ministry. In that time he experienced all life: miracles, love, betrayal, temptation, storms, God’s presence in prayers, death, disease, healing, and resurrection to name a few. It was enough time to understand how deeply this world and God’s children needed saving. I don’t think he really needed that much time to know how broken this place was, but we got to keep him for 33 years nonetheless. The wildest, simplest yet important gift Jesus expressed, both in his living ministry and in his death was surrender.
Maybe that’s what my friend meant when she said she stopped caring what people thought at thirty - she surrendered other people's opinions over to themselves and to God.
She chose not to pick them up and dissect the words and carry around the pieces. I surrendered my expectations of what my teens and twenties should have been to God. My favorite co-worker and boss used to say “don’t should all over yourself”. Motherhood has become so much gentler and sweeter and quieter because I’m showing up and there is nothing to compare it to. There are days when I get deceived but the Spirit has been quick to remind me God is in control of this season, not me. And he calls it good and more than enough.
It’s still a journey, this is one of those lanes on the Cobblestone Road I’ve walked too many times I decided it was time to pave it so it could go a bit smoother. But it’s a grace and gift to know surrender is a daily freedom I get to choose. May 33 be a year of even deeper surrender to God’s will and plan, may I have the courage to try and hold His peace in the inbetween.
