3.13.2007

on being thirty

i come home from work tired and sleepy ready to jump into my bed after 12 hours. yesterday, i was 29 years old. today i turn 30... and what a sad day to turn 30, because just a few hours ago i admitted a 2 year old boy who just lost a mother, a brother, a sister and their home in a fire. i heard from the ER nurse that his dad is still waiting for a telemetry bed down in the ER.

it was the most difficult admission i've done not because the doctor's orders were complicated (that was actually the easiest part) but because it was hard to act like i wasn't affected while i was asking the grandmother and the aunt questions for the admission history. i mean how do i ask them about allergies, about their family health history and about that 2 year old's usual bowel movement pattern without eliciting tears from them and not looking like an insensitive jerk. that was so not the way i thought i would start my birthday. i felt sorry for the family's loss. i felt sorry for the boy who all of a sudden has no mommy to come home to. all throughout the time i was starting an IV line on the boy, i kept thinking about what's in store for him in the future and with all the support i've seen from the family, i know that he's gonna be okay.

anyways, i forego sleep and pondered on what i would do today now that i'm 30. i don't wanna do anything special or anything different. i just wanna be with myself.

when i was in grade school, i used to think that i would feel differently when i get to the big 3-0. that i'd be this really matured person who would scoff at people being silly in their carefree ways. i thought that i'd turn into this strict-librarian-type of person who wouldn't know how to have fun. i honestly thought that being 30 would totally suck. but it surely doesn't.

i realized that at 30, i could still watch spongebob squarepants and enjoy it's (sometimes) sick humor. that i could run around the hallways of the apartment building with nicolas (adriana's dog) running after me without feeling silly. i could still play games and ride bikes with my friends kids in the park during our once a year picnic. that i could sit in the playroom with my toddler patient and color books or finish a jigsaw puzzle or just watch the fishies in the tank as they gobble up the fish food and still call it work. i guess i could put it in this perspective. i could still be a kid at heart and get away with it being 30 and all.

a friend asked me the other night over the phone what would be the worst part about seeing my 20's go away? i guess the fact that i cannot go back to it all. that there were a lot of things that i haven't done or tried to do because i was too busy, too lazy or too scared to do it. excuses... excuses... this time there shouldn't be any at all.