twenty seven

Yup, today is my 27th birthday.
The day is known better in these parts as the "official start of hurricane season."  And also when your rent is probably due.

Maybe I'm weird, but I thought 26 was a "dumb age."  I know it's just a number, but nobody is impressed when you say you are 26.  Characters in books and movies are never 26 years old.  I read a lot of chick-lit novels, and I think the characters are usually 27-29.  So I'm excited that I won't be a "dumb age" again until probably 32.  However, I know I look young, and I don't think I ever will be a "sophisticated woman."  (Is 27 the age where you officially become a woman?  If so, yikes!)

I know a lot of people like to reflect on where they thought they would be by xx age.  I hear 24-year-olds whining that they thought they would be married and/or have kids by now, and I hear 42-year-olds wondering what happened to their career goals.  I actually never had a real "plan" for myself.  My big goal was to go to college, graduate, get a job.  (For being a straight-A student, you'd think I would have had loftier ambitions, right?)  Well, I did all of those things.  Although my job never turned into a career (or even something I remotely enjoyed), but I'm not sure if that was in the cards anyway.

I think a lot of plans we set for ourselves are based on what our parents did.  My parents are an anomaly.  They didn't meet until their 30's.  Neither had been married before.  Mom was a true pioneer for women, working her butt off in her 20's to put herself through college and then working even harder to break through barriers and glass ceilings in a man's field (accounting/bank examining).   For me, getting married at age 25 was sort of weird (even though it's right around the average age for a bride in America) because it pre-dated my mom by 9 years.  At one point in my youth, I might have told you I didn't think I'd ever get married or have kids.  I was always an oddball anyway.  So, I can't really say much about what I thought I would be by the time I was 27 because, in all honesty, I never gave it much thought.

But I can say that I like myself.  I don't think I got married too early.  I don't think I'll be having children too early or too late.  It sorta bothers me that I haven't really figured out what I want actually do for a paycheck, but if I'm just a wife and mother, I'll be happy with that.  (A happy family is a very nice paycheck.)  I'm self-assured and comfortable in my own skin.  I have a wonderful husband who supports me in many ways.  I'm happy with the knowledge and skills I have, but I also am aware of all that I don't know.  I have few regrets, and even without big plans and ambitions, I think my life has turned out pretty darn well.  And it's only getting better!