thirty-five

thirty-five.  what is that?  i honestly don't know.  i had to do the math to even figure out how old i turned yesterday.  it appears that 2012 - 1977 - actually does equal 35.  t-h-i-r-t-y - f-i-v-e years old.  where did that come from?  i really don't get it, i mean just yesterday i was going off to college, meeting the man of my dreams, getting married, buying our first house, moving out of state, applying for adoption, being placed with the most perfect baby - and then boom 35 hits me.

 i don't think my child like mind ever dreamed of the age of thirty-five.  see, i had things all mapped out.  at age 27 i'd have my first child.  then within two years i'd have another.  while the first would be a boy or girl, the second would be the opposite - so we'd end up with one of each.  then, when 27 came and went without a baby in our house, i said it would happen by 30.  then, by 29, when things were not going so hot in that department we decided to move out of state.  we packed up everything and made a life change to live in nc.  then, i was sure that this was what we needed to get us to parent land.  but, alas - even by 30 - 31 - 32 - it still was not happening.  by this point, i don't think i could really see past the day ahead. 

see, i am a planner.  when things don't go my way, its hard to digest.  it sometimes gets on will's nerves and he just cannot see why i need to have everything mapped out, but when you come from a family of planners (fighting over who is going to plan the plan) its hard to escape.  and so, when my plans - that i had been working on since high school - were not unfolding like i'd mapped out, it started to get rough.  i think i never let my self think beyond the day to day because i was afraid that another plan would be foiled - and that i just quite possibly might not be able to handle it.

it was around about this time that i suddenly realized that my life was not really about all of my planning, but about God's planning and that his plan would unfold when and how He wanted it to.  it was then that i kind of let myself let go of some of the how we'd become parents and the when we'd become parents and just knew we would become parents.  for so long my plan was to be a mom.  by this next birthday i'll be a mom - i used to think, or this is my last birthday not being a mom, or when i'd blow out my candles, the only wish would be to be a mom.  then it changed, and my wish, my prayer, my hope in knowing was that one day i would be a mom and we'd do it in God's most perfect plan and just that each year would be better than the last.

that birthday just happened.  yesterday was my first birthday being a mom.  it's crazy to think how much i'd stopped planning and stopped focusing on the timing.  i did not even know how old i was.  so, after all of those years of watching the clock, wishing, waiting, and hoping - the moments now are so much more important than the time that has actually passed.  it does not matter what age i am or what age i will be next september 13th.  all i focus on are the joyous seconds that i get to spend with this precious child, knowing that for this birthday, and the next, and the next - i'm his momma and that this year is totally better than the last.