Live and Learn

I'm thirty!  I think I may be the only person I know who is excited to be leaving her twenties behind her for the next decade of adventures.  I'm working on my own version of a list my friend Lauren did...but hers was a 30 by 30 list (30 things to do before she turns 30) and mine is going to be 30 FOR 30: Thirty things to accomplish for my thirties.

Today, though, I want to say goodbye to my twenties.  I don't think I'll ever look back and say, wow, those were the best days.  There was a lot of heartache and growing pains,but I want to celebrate them rather than look back with regret or sadness.  It is the journey that makes us who we are, and I have had one wild ride.  I was a professional actress/singer, a fiance, and an aunt.  I traveled the country from coast to coast and visited several European countries.  I lived in at least 4 different states, drove from Texas to Virginia to New York-more than once, and had a landlady named Helga who was about as German as they come.  I have been to countless weddings, sang in 3 of them, and about as many baby showers.  I have been unemployed, self-employed, and fully employed with benefits.  I'm thinking there's not much I haven't done (although I know there's so much more to come!)

So here's some hard-won wisdom, 30 lessons by 30.  Some practical, some entertaining, and all true:

1. It's okay if you don't wash dishes the night you mess them up, but washing them within 24 hours is a pretty good idea.
2. If you fail at #1, it's okay to throw the dishes out.  Just buy cheap ones.  Or paper.  Or date someone who likes to do dishes.
3. 409, Pledge, Spot Shot, and other cleaning sprays are excellent substitutes for bug killing spray (especially when you live alone with no boys nearby).  Just keep a dust pan handy to scoop up the dead bug.  And you also end up with clean carpets or walls.  It's a win-win.
4.  Do not try to pack wine with plastic corks in your suitcase.  Regular corks will allow your wine to fly just fine, no exploding vintages or red soaked shoes.  Plastic means you're getting a new wardrobe.
5. Do stay in touch with your high school friends.  There's a reason you were friends back then, and (most of the time) it's nice to have someone who knew-you-when around when everyone else just knows-ya-now.  And don't worry if it's ten years between get togethers-with the right friends you'll just pick up right where you left off.
6. Don't eat chicken in Mexico.  Ever.
7. Don't drink the water either.
8. Saying "I love you" is not the same as meaning it.
9. Be open to possibilites.  You are not limited to one single dream for life.
10. Being alone is better than being with someone who won't, or can't, love you the way you deserve.  And you deserve to be loved well.
11. Your college degree does not define what job(s) you will have or what field you will work in, or even guarantee you success.  That being said, it's totally worth every penny and every hour.  Even if you never use it again.
12. After finally getting the college degree it will take approximately 7 years, several moves back in with the parents, a bad break-up, a totaled car, credit card debt, and six months of crying in your bedroom day and night for you to figure out who you are.  And that euphoria will last about ten seconds before you realize that now you have to get off your butt and do something about it.
13. You can cook just about anything on a George Foreman Grill, including scrambled eggs, hashbrowns, bacon, and toast-at the same time!
14. Toothpaste is an excellent wall hole filler.
15. Being a creative thinker does not always mean not following directions.  Sometimes someone already did the creative thinking for you and they are trying to save you the time of blowing things up or ruining your favorite cookie sheet by simply writing the process that worked.
16. Your parents will be right about a lot of things, but it's important to make sure you don't tell them that too often.  They might get big egos and expect you to listen to them all the time.
17. Good things actually do come to those who wait.  It helps if you try not to complain too much while waiting.  This is something I am still working on. 
18. The social hierarchy that began at recess and in the halls of elementary school doesn't change, just our perception of it and how we react to our place in that hierarchy.  Nerds are still nerds and cheerleaders are still goodlooking but dimwitted.  Obviously my perception hasn't evolved all that much.
19. It is not true that if you swallow gum it will take 7 years to digest.  This is yet another myth perpetrated by parents to keep you in their intellectual power as long as possible.
20. It is universal that elder siblings feel that their younger siblings had it much easier (sort of like how our parents think we have it so much easier...).  This is because it is, in fact, true.
21.  Everyone's family is weird and dysfunctional.  Some are just louder than others, and mine happens to be one of those.  Still, in the end, being loud and weird and dysfunctional sure beats being boring.
22. There are 346 ways to break a wine glass.  I personally have found them all.
23. Wine tags on your glasses don't work because the people who need them the most will have drunk too much to be paying any attention to the tag on the glass, and when they realize there is a tag designating the drink for a specific person it is likely they will spill the wine in an effort to figure out what the tag looks like and who belongs to it.  This is a waste of perfectly good wine.  Not that I know from personal experience.  I'm just sayin'.
24. Just in case someone DOES spill red wine on your carpet, plain old regular salt will soak it up and leave no stain.  This one I DO know from personal experience.
25. It's okay to ask for help.  It's not like you're asking for a million dollars.  Unless someone out there has a million to spare.  In which case, I could use that too.
26. Be kind, be patient, be grateful.  These things never go out of style, and you're never too old for them.
27. It is a fact of female life that you actually do have to wash you face every single night, even if you didn't wear makeup, if you want to avoid a week of pimples.
28. Choose your battles wisely and you will win the war.  Ask my mother about my freshman year of college and the battle for the car.  (I won.)
29. Call you mother.  More importantly, call your father.  His guilt trips are louder, longer, and harder to argue with.
30. Just be yourself, and realize that who that is will constantly change.  The people who love you will ALWAYS love you, even when you don't know who you are.  Trust them and yourself, and you'll be just fine.