Girlfriends and God

Last year I hit thirty and thought things would start to make sense. Who was I kidding? I still feel like a nineteen year old girl "playing grownup." People have always said that age is just a number and now that I'm thirty-one I think I have figured that one out. The question of where I'm at, now that I'm thirty-one is the most interesting contemplation, not the monotonous progressive counting reminiscent of kindergarten. A great discovery now that I'm in my thirties is the incomparable value of girlfriends and God. I'll be honest that I guess I'm a late bloomer in this respect. Most people seem to grasp the value of girlfriends fairly early on but I didn't. Managing relationships has never been my strong suit and I was not good at prioritizing or showing appreciation for my girlfriends at all. Through my twenties I think Jody and I explored the immeasurable worth of having a true connection with your spouse as you begin a family. It was great and I look back on it with a glow of satisfaction. But now I'm broadening and thinking about things in a little different way. My chum Jenn brought over Chinese and we had a four hour lunch today. When I was primarily focused on Jody, I used to sensationalize how grand it would be to go have lunch with him, and it is grand if he has the day off of work. On the other hand, if you go on a work day, he will be thrilled but distracted and you'll be lucky to have him 70% at attention for a little less than an hour. I'm not saying Jody is an abysmal lunch date. I'm saying it's not the best way to connect with him and it's not the most relaxing thing in the world that you can do for him. On the contrary, I feel like I'm slightly taxing him. I don't regret the effort, I feel we have nice memories from our lunches and I'm sure we'll still do it, but under close examination a good question is "What is the best way to love your man with meaning?" Around noon Jenn called to tell me she was running a bit late because she had tried to cram a little too much into her morning so she could be free all afternoon without chores. I laughed and told her I had done exactly the same thing. We were so focused on how great our lunch date was going to be, that we had crammed a ridiculous amount of effort into setting our entire afternoons free. And we were glad we did. We ate way too much Chinese and gabbed it up for the whole afternoon. It was kind of a dawning of a new realization for me. How nice to have my dream lunch and an animated discussion of things that would be physically painful for Jody. How nice for Jody to come home to a less than needy wife who had a great day and prepared a fine dinner. By the same token, how nice it was that he and I had a lovely breakfast together without my telephone or internet when he had a day off last week. I feel the same glow from both experiences and I'm glad that I'm learning how to tap into the "good times".
The other thing I'm exploring in my thirties is resuming my "best friend" status with God that I had in my teen years. It seemed like I just couldn't do it in my twenties. I had baggage from churches, choices and the overwhelming new job of wife and mother. I think finding God in the middle of it was just beyond my faith and organization level. It seemed like whenever Jody and I made a step in that direction we'd hit a spiritual wall and the Holy Spirit was elusive. I look at how reachable God is to me now compared to my twenties and I'm kind of flabbergasted and very thankful. I spent a worried and guilty decade wondering how I was ever going to get back to Him and here we are. I finally feel myself pulling back into a comfortable and familiar friendship that makes everything in life make sense. So yeah, I'm glad I'm thirty-one and I'm pretty sure I'll be glad to turn fifty-one and eighty-one.