Just Under Three More Weeks...

I have just under three more weeks and then I'll be thirty.

Thirty.

I've been spending the last several weeks reflecting on the Danie from ten years ago. The Danie who was about to turn twenty was a goddamned mess. I found her blog and am ashamed that it was me who wrote it. I must say that it's a relief that I've always been so raw with my feelings when writing, but the content itself is so unnecessary and unimportant given the changes that I have undergone in the last ten years.

Turning twenty seems like it was tremendously devastating for me. I was going through what I had assumed would be the largest ordeals of my life, when in comparison, they were small fries. I was preparing to move to England and in turn, uproot my entire life for the sake of a love that I had little expectation would end only slightly less quickly than it had begun. I was drastically in love and content to shout it from the rooftops. I was the centre of my universe with little or no regard to anything or anyone that tried to distract from that. I alienated every single person from my life who didn't hold me on a pedestal, unwilling to acknowledge or feel any compassion for anybody but my own self. And for what? I lost several months of friendship with one of the most important and influential people in my life. I said embarrassingly hateful things to people who wanted nothing but to see me make decisions that were going to make my future as beautiful as I wanted it to be. People who were frustrated and exhausted with my petulant attitude and need for constant attention.

Actual constant attention. I literally posted like six entries a day, every single day. I was begging for people to idolize my desperation. There was no notice of other people, their needs, or really anything except how they could help me.

I was living in an ugly world. Nineteen for me was just an awful time and I wish I could go back and slap myself around a little bit and talk some sense to myself.  So many ties were severed in those several months before turning twenty and I hate that I let myself get that bad.

And since, I have gone to England, gotten married, lost my mother, gotten divorced, moved back to America, lost a couple of best friends, gotten married again, lost my grandmother, begun school, and endured the agonizing job that is step-parenting. And that's a nutshell, just a little snippet of the large, sweeping events that have headlined my life in the past ten years. It's been a highly eventful decade that has seen beauty and horrible. Seen great strides that have been painful, but have turned me into a person that I am proud of who has grown and learned hugely.

Now, today, I am just over three weeks to thirty and over three-quarters into my education, happily making my marriage into something I can be infinitely prouder of every day, and building friendships with people who are special and just as willing to let me uplift their lives as they do mine. It's a much more fulfilling and satisfying leap into a new decade.  I have achieved many things and come through a gigantic amount of experiences and I couldn't be happier with where my life is right now.

So, as I go into my next ten years. My thirties. I'm not as scared as I was prior to my twenties. I am eagerly awaiting what my next adventure will look like. How many more beautiful people I will meet, and what new experiences I will have. I can't wait to find out what I will learn and how I will grow. It's not as scary of a time for me and I welcome it with open arms.

i want to thank you...

i'm noticing it a lot lately...

i'm kinda an adult now. it's fun and scary and interesting and... i don't really know.

i realized it quite suddenly just sat outside. i was watching the rain from our front porch (which, can i just say, is an amazing thing to have in the rain) and thinking about my ex-husband.

i emailed him this morning because of my new/old obsession, which is The Sims 2. i always forget that i should not play it because i tend to completely let it control my life. i've been spending the last two days perfecting a house for "janey" and "me"... i've yet to actually even start PLAYING the game, just building houses. but when i play The Sims, i REALLY play it... i download loads of extra shit and pimp the fuck out of my houses, which is why it has been two days and i still have yet to complete a house.

please note, that my being an adult has NOTHING to do with playing The Sims and i am admitting that now. that's one thing i do that i really should not be doing when i KNOW there are clothes in the washing machine that need drying and i KNOW that there are dishes in the dishwasher that could do with putting away and i KNOW that there are cupcakes i need to bake. but you know what? i've applied for one job today and looked for other jobs and i STARTED that load of laundry that's slowly rotting away in the washing machine after rolling out of bed to snuggle the boyface before he left for workies at a quarter past five this morning, so give me a freaking break!

anyways, i emailed Christopher because i needed to know how to do something on the computer... it was only immediately after emailing him that i fixed what i asked him for help with and proceeded to play The Sims for two hours.

when i was finished perfecting the living room and "janey's" bedroom i quit for the morning. i need to update my ipod and do some housework, but i checked my email first, one of which was from Christopher. it was a friendly email... one of the ones i really enjoy receiving. one of the ones that makes me think that i will be able to talk to him about music, computers and fish long into the future. i immediately replied with pride, announcing i had fixed my problem and proceeding to tell him about job searches and fish and blah, blah, blah.

post-email i went for my fag and had my revelation, which is why i am now sat here, typing away instead of eating or mopping the bathroom floor. i NEEDED to tell you all and thank someone.

i sat there and thought about Christopher... and then thought about the fish and the fact that i want to brew some cider. then i thought about what i will be making for dinner and remembered that i should hoover, which led me to remember that the only reason i will be ABLE to hoover when i finally get around to it is because i changed the belt just before leaving for Cheyenne.

after a series of thoughts like these, i realized it... i realized i'm an adult who cooks, sews, cleans, works (when given the chance) and makes conscious decisions. i thought about all the adult things that i do and tried to remember when and where that happened. how i transitioned from "sassy teen" to "Danie, SUPER ADULT!"

all of it happened in England and all of it happened whilst i was with Christopher... or as a direct result of him. he is the reason i know more than i ever needed to know about hoovers, after seeing him take several apart and put them back together. he's the reason i know how to cook, after watching his trials and errors in the kitchen for five years. he's the reason i sew and crochet, because he generally embraced me doing creative things and commended my dedication to my arts and worklife.

i am an adult almost completely because of Christopher... an adult that i am so, so happy with and an adult that i wouldn't be had i not married him or spent five years of my life with him.

so, i guess this is a thank you, if you are reading this... and an announcement to everyone else that I'M AN ADULT!! YAY!!

26: What might you have been like if you had had perfect nurturing?

i don't really like this question because there is no way of saying what 'perfect nurturing' is. like, i know that my upbringing wasn't the ideal definition of 'perfect,' but i wouldn't change it for the world.

like, the thought of me having a different or more 'perfect' upbringing terrifies me because the place i am at the moment is just so perfect for me. i am the perfect amount of hard and soft in all the right places and i worry that had i had a different upbringing, i could have been like, either super-sensitive or a massive dick-face. i think this creature i turned into is perfect and any other upbringing would have hugely altered that.

1: Where Did You Grow Up?

i grew up in cheyenne, wyoming in a house on east 10th street... it was the most splendid house ever and i could never have imagined anyplace better for me to have grown up. i lived with my mum and swapped bedrooms everytime i had the whim to do so.

the house undertook a vast amount of changes in the time i lived there... like what? you might ask... well, firstly, there wasn't always a ramp leading to the front door. my mum fell quite ill when i was about nine and she had a great deal of work done on the house by the state and the ramp was to help her with her wheelchair. unfortunately, the ramp was created too steep and my mum was never able to use it on her own. someone always had to push her... and despite the fact that the ramp was a fabulous idea, there was still a big fat step for my mum to have to go up to actually get INTO the house.

i loved that house and i still do. not very often does a night pass that i do not dream about that house.