My birthday and the real world

So, I had taken a break from posting for a bit. No, the bleeding dryer didn't send me over the edge into an institution. While I had wished death upon that dryer many times, thinking I'd have a semi-permanent break from laundry; it continues to toss and turn and blow hot air giving me the opportunity to serve my family by folding yet another burp cloth, hanging multi-colored teeny tiny teenage bras, my husbands pants for work and wadding up the enormous granny panties with holes that now occupy MY underwear drawer. But I digress...

Yesterday was my birthday. I turned 38. I thought that when I turned 36, I was officially on the wrong side of 40 slipping further and further away from 30. However, having turned 38, I've decided that THIS is worse. The "mid-thirties" has passed me by and I'm now supposed to be exhibiting signs of maturity and wisdom that I don't feel. My body has morphed into something resembling a large pineapple, complete with hair that doesn't look right long or short (or bald) and skin covered in the speckled spots of sun damage from beautiful suntans long forgotten. And oh, my bladder. Thank God for Poise Pads. Enough said.

But my brain, my fabulous brain. That wonderful gray matter that makes it all happen. Where all my dreams began and my imagination ran wild as a teenager. The thing that keeps me up at night worrying about my kids' futures. The organ that allows us the opportunity to experience a sunset, to smell a fresh pot of coffee in the morning, to feel the sand in my toes on the beach, to instinctively know when something isn't right with my oldest daughter, to balance a checkbook...that thing that allows me to have an ORGASM! What an amazing piece of God's work. But I guess, as all things do, my brain is getting older, and it isn't quite the same. You know what I'm talking about. Walking into a room and not remembering why you went in there? Your husband asking where his dry-cleaning is that you were supposed to pick up yesterday so he'd have his favorite shirt for a meeting? A child shaking you awake at the crack of dawn needing a ride to school early for a makeup test...citing "I told you last week!"? And unlike the lovable Dorie from Finding Nemo, it's not JUST the short-term is it? It's remembering the name of your 3rd grade boyfriend, recalling what it felt like to go to your first prom...it may even be a few details of your wedding.

Well, I say, no matter. Here is just a smidge of that wisdom...it just came to me while I was writing. This is what I know about MY REAL WORLD:

1) Not everyone remembers birthdays...especially ME...but SOME of the people who matter most remembered and called to encourage me. What a blessing. Some people have no one to remember.

2) My underwear may be huge, but that is because my HEART is so big, and gravity has pulled it down into my butt. Therefore, I NEED bigger underwear.

3) My children are the greatest gift God ever gave me. These days when they are young and learning and expanding THEIR brains and building THEIR dreams; that is what I want to remember. If I lose my brain (or my mind) entirely, I KNOW that they will help me remember.

4) My husband is my walking miracle. He loves me when I'm totally disgusting. He laughs even when he's mad. He will be with me putting the puzzle pieces of my life together until the very end. When we met, he didn't believe in God or true love. Now, he and my son will be baptized together at our church on Easter Sunday. He is a walking testimony to the healing power of God. And he not only believes in true love, he epitomizes it, lives it and teaches our children to wait for it.

5) The laundry will never go away. I will never be able to afford to hire someone to do all my laundry all the time. And that's ok. Those burp cloths and those white socks that have to be matched for 7 different people... that is my REAL WORLD. And if nothing else, it TEACHES me to SERVE. It REMINDS me that people NEED me. It allows me to experience true love in a very REAL way. Without TRUE LOVE in my life, my brain would have no purpose. So, Thank God for LAUNDRY. And for the invention of the dryer.