Earn your years

This week I have been identified as being well under my true age multiple times. I am not complaining at all -- that will never get old! When this happened in the past, I would have typically just brushed it off. Now, however, I have been defiantly correcting this mistake. 

I am proud of my age. I have earned my years. I want to wear them as a badge of honor for everyone to see! So now I politely smile, say thanks, and offer my true age with confidence.

I recently read an article outlining the different aspects of your twenties and it caused me to reminisce on mine. They have been fabulous. Incredible. Wonderful. My Aunt Maria (probably the wisest woman I know) always told me "your twenties are your best." The most fun, the time where you are socially allowed to find and create yourself. The time to try new things. To be bold in your mistakes. 

And now, as I get closer to thirty and see how far I've come since twenty; as I look back on the broad spectrum of change I experienced from twenty till now...I am filled with so much pride and love for those years.  I know I'm going to tell my future children the same thing my Aunt Maria told me -- live up your twenties, make them count, they are the very best. 

I think in general people change a little bit over time -- as life experiences affect them, as they become spouses or parents. But I've already gone through the down and dirty work of learning who I am and making myself into who I want to be a few times in my twenties. {In fact, in the past few months, I have gotten to know myself better than at any other time in my life} And I don't think I will be able to say that about any other decade of my life. 

I know the other decades will have great things to offer and that I'm the type of person that will be happy with wherever I am in life, no matter the time. But I am going to always look back on my twenties with pride, love and a nostalgia that knows that the spark my twenties had will never be repeated in the same way again. 

I am going to be so wistful to turn 30. Not because of the number, but because of what I'm leaving behind, the door that will be closed. I've got a year and a half left, I'm going to make them the most amazing yet. When I turn 30, I want to shout it from the mountaintops because I know what it took to make it there. And, then, I'll do the same at 40.