Three Decades

6 days from now, I'm going to turn 30.

30!

When I was in elementary school, I remember looking at the high school seniors in the youth group at our church and thinking, "Wow, they have great hair! When I am 18, I will have good hair." When I turned 18, I wondered where my awesome hair was…I felt almost as young and silly as I did when I was admiring those kids from 10 years earlier.

I have never yet felt like a grown-up. Sometimes I act like one, and I bet I fool a lot of people (including my bosses and the bank and people who have given me loans for things), but I don't FEEL like I have become a grown-up, and I'm about to be 30.

30!

I'm not afraid of the number, especially because it DOES feel like just a number. I always wonder what makes a person feel like an adult—it isn't being married, at least not in my case. It isn't owning property or paying all one's own bills. It isn't having a "real" job. Could it be having kids? To my friends with children: does having children make you feel like an adult? Is it not until much later in life, when your own parents are gone, that you begin to feel like an adult?

30 does seem like a milestone, this nice round number, multiple of ten, so I feel like I should do something monumental for it. I thought about buying myself an iPhone, but with the possible enhancements coming from Apple in July, I feel like buying one NOW might make me mad in about four more weeks. There isn't a whole lot I need….so how would you celebrate this milestone, or how did you? Any ideas or warnings for me?