32

Today has been an interesting day. For starters, at 8:37 p.m., I turned 32 years old.

I've been having issues with the number 32 lately. In my late teens and exceptionally early 20s, I spent a lot of time around a then-boyfriend's older brother and sister-in-law. These folks had their act together - they had their own home, jobs, a truck and a minivan, one kid already and another on the way. They were responsible, they were mature, they were grown. And for some reason, I vividly remember one of them (I forget which) turning *gasp* 32.

32 didn't seem old to me when I was 18-19-20, it just seemed like an entirely different world from the one that I inhabited then.

Flash forward a dozen years or so...and I have my own home, a relentlessly full-time job (what do you call parenting and homeschooling?), several vehicles, and two kids. I have responsibility in spades, and some people might even call me mature. (At the very least, I can fake it quite well when the need arises.)

But grown? REALLY?! Am I really capable of all of that? Well, I guess I am. I've never had my driver's license snatched away. My kids are healthy and happy and usually kind of reasonably behaved. Other people regularly entrust me with their children, and I can't think of a higher act of trust in my capability. So I guess I'm sort of doing the grown-up thing. But inside, I still feel like a teenager, wondering what I'm going to do with my life, how exactly I got into this situation, and why on earth I'm trusted with so much. I have everyone fooled! The joke is on them! HA HA HA!!

And I wonder if other thirty-somethings feel the same way. Are we ALL just putting on our grown-up hats and pretending to be responsible adults? Surely not. But maybe...

Other ways that this day has been interesting:

• This has been my first birthday spent (mostly) alone. My girls are with me, on vacation at the beach, but no husband, no parents, no friends. No party today. *sniff* But I have amazing friends that made sure I had one before we hit the road. It's kind of been "just another day", only not. That makes sense, right?
• Did I mention that I'm at the BEACH? I heart the beach. A lot. Despite the heat (I'm usually not a fan), I'd rather be beside the ocean than anywhere else in the world. So any day that I spend being knocked around by waves is A-OK in my book.
• I touched a horseshoe crab.
• I saw real live mermaids. (Quite possibly the highlight of Rachael's entire LIFE.)
• Sharks came to celebrate my birthday! I didn't see them, but they came close enough to shore that lifeguards ordered everyone out of the water. Maybe they thought I had cake.
• I had no birthday cake. :(
• But I did get a giant hat!

Yeah, a guy on stilts made that for me while we were having dinner at Margaritaville. I can finally say that I've eaten a Cheeseburger in Paradise, and it was deeeee-lish.

Those milkshakes belonged to the girls, though. I'm so finding me a birthday-type dessert tomorrow.

It's been a great day, despite the oddness...and I hardly felt a thing when I actually turned 32. Funny how the things that I dread usually end up being not-such-a-big-deal after all.