30, flirty, and thriving

This is today's status, and blog post title. I turned 30 today so I chose an obscure movie reference to describe my day. So you may be asking yourself, "how has she really changed over her life time?" Well, I will show you. I don't have any 1 year birthday pictures here at my house, but I do have this one . . . my guess is 9:

And now (on my birthday trip to NYC):
Look closely. Do you see it? I'm THE EXACT SAME (minus the watermelon shorts and the hair length).



For those of you who have followed for very long I do a year end review on my birthday. Last year I didn't really do one, I took up something else - a life. So instead I wrote about a decision I made TO NOT WATCH TV OR MOVIES FOR A YEAR. Well, times up. When I read the entry I laughed . . . a lot. I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

I'm not going to talk about what I gave up, I'm going to talk about what I got (in no particular order).

1. Contentment. It was hiding under all the media. It is an amazing gift, one that can get taken back, but when you have it there is a calm that I can't explain. A calm that says, "you are fine, you will make it JUST THE WAY YOU ARE."
2. Running. Now, not so much a gift like contentment. It is more work. This was a late coming phenomenon to the year (I think I started in March/April). There are days where it is the only thing that I feel like doing. While I was in NYC I was overcome with the desire to run part of Central Park . . . but I couldn't. Ran a 5K at the end of May, looking at running an 8K middle of July. Where did that come from? All I could really think about doing today was going for a birthday run, but instead I took a nap. I traded a run for the greater good. You might say I took the lazy way out, which is pretty typical for me, but I haven't slept well since going camping and I knew that if I didn't get a nap I would snap and rip peoples heads off and spit down their neck. So you see, the greater good.
3. Closer friends. Instead of sitting around watching TV or going out for a movie we had to DO something. That doing developed closer friendships to those I was already close to and closer friendships with those I hadn't really expected to grow closer to.
4. Peace. Not the same as contentment. When things go wrong, I don't freak out. Well I have the last couple of days, but mostly because I am really tired.
5. A new career path. I honestly don't think I would be going back to school if I hadn't taken this time to sit and be quiet for awhile.
6. Quiet. I went camping this last weekend and I found I have this uncanny ability to just sit (sometimes for hours) and just sit. I use to do that with TV and I was just plugging stuff into my head instead of working on what was already in there and needed to be worked on.
7. Freedom. I am not dictated by TV schedules, mostly I am dictated by sun cycles. I am much freer to go do something random.

I'm not going to sit here and say I am never going to watch TV again, or that I'm not going to watch a movie (SOON), but I am saying that I don't have the connection to it that I use to. I'm not even taking a TV to school with me. I know there is more. Way more, but that is all I can think about right now - mostly because I have the attention span for internet about the size of a gnat.