The Thirtiest

Thirty.

I've been using that word lately as an adjective. As in, "This is the thirtiest I have ever felt." Life has become so different from my twenties that it makes my head spin if I stop too long to think about it.

"When did we become adults?" my coworker asked while we were taking an afternoon walk through the parking lot. "Like, if something bad happens, I'm prepared to handle it. I have money in the bank."

"I know! I was feeling spendy this morning, so I donated to a few charities because there was nothing I needed to buy."

This conversation is pretty thirty.

The first time I felt thirty was when I was out to dinner with my girlfriends. We were at a nice steak house in Buckhead and I had just been served my second glass of pinot noir.

"Our rescue dog has been showing signs of separation anxiety, so I enrolled us in doggy yoga," I told them.

The waiter's eyebrows shot up ten miles high so I stopped for a moment to think about what I had just said. I just said "dog" and "yoga" in the same sentence as a activity to do as if it were perfectly normal.*

That was the thirtiest I had felt for a long time.

Then my friend planned an adult coloring party. I packed up my books and my markers in my Thirty-One tote. As I was walking down the wooden steps to her house, one step was deeper than the others and I rolled my ankle pretty hard when I hit the step unexpectedly.

I was crying before I knew I was still alive. I knew I hurt myself pretty badly falling down the last couple of stairs.** Crying, I laid sprawled on the ground and called Abe, who had just dropped me off.

"My markers!" I wailed. I feebly picked them out of the grass as Abe returned.

"I'm so sorry. I should have waited to make sure you got inside okay," he said. As he was evaluating my foot, my friend approached. They helped me pick up everything I had dropped.

She held up the hummus container, which was flattened like a penny on one side, and said, "Well, I know where you landed."

And then for the foreseeable future I had to tell people that I hurt myself on my way to a coloring party when I fell down the stairs and landed on my hummus.

That, my friends, is the thirtiest I have ever felt.



*No but seriously, doggy yoga was great. They had aromatherapy and played some sort of calming-dog CD and the room was dark and I taught her downward-facing dog. She really enjoyed it.

*Y'all, I broke my tailbone and was on crutches for over a month. The doctor said I did the most amount of damage that I could have possibly done without breaking anything. It still hurts. I have to lay around like a Roman.