My precious little baby turns 30 this weekend. She is with her hubster in Vegas for shows, food, and fun. Great job, great husband, great life. I am so happy for her.
Daughter posing with her husband at Top of the World Restaurant for 30th. 
Daughter at age 8 mo. being washed by her big sis, my step daughter, age 15.
I ask all the predictable questions; How is this possible? How can so much time have passed? But I know the reality and the answers. I am confounded by her being older than me inside my head. But more than anything, I am grateful. Grateful that new family trajectories can be established.
I was in a bad head space when I was 30. I remember being at someone else’s party, someone I did not know, out in the country a bit west of the university where I was trying to finish up my M.S.
As I turned 30, as the clock struck midnight, I was alone on an unlighted side of the house, totally in the dark, sitting on a rope and board swing, rhythmically swinging out far over a steep slope. I was crying. I was in a relationship that was only getting worse and had been in that shape for several years.
I had no support system as my family was uninvolved with me and as dysfunctional and distant as they come. The guy was a hoarder, a liar, and a manipulative underachiever. My life when linked with his seemed to be spiraling into a pit of unhappy quicksand where I had neither the resources nor confidence to pull myself up and strike out on my own, to just start over, which was what was needed.
Within a couple years I did move across country and start anew.
When my daughter was born I knew that the most important thing I had to accomplish was to raise a self-assured daughter who knows she is loved unconditionally, and that we are always here for her. Mission accomplished.
I am so thankful that I now know that the long view is a realistic one and generational change is a reasonable goal for which to work.
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