Turning thirty-something

Today, I made a big pot of coffee and only drank one mug this morning. I bolted all my windows carefully. I broke up another crying fit between three of my first graders. I talked to Sun Sung Duck for a half an hour while she taught me the names of some fish, and I watched her throw fish heads and gut small squid. I had an amazing eighteen course meal with Shin Bun Ock.
It was like a regular day in Meyoung Jong Dong, but I still feel a bit like a princess.
I remember being quite upset when I turned twenty-three. I felt like all the goals and dreams I had set for myself were slowly fading before my eyes.
Now, I do not feel the same sort of frantic fear about age. Yes, time is going too quickly, and yes, I'm having a wretched time getting the next project going, and yes, I don't know where I will be in six months, and yes, I miss my family dearly.
But instead of feeling frantic about my youth slipping away, I feel a growing sense of satisfaction in where I have been--not just physically, but mentally and emotionally.
So much has changed in the last twenty years, and mostly--although I'm not proud of most of it--I wouldn't change any of it. I am who I am, and these experiences and choices have created the person I am today. And I wouldn't be the same person I am if it weren't for the different choices I have made and the different places that God has let me go.
Like the Schrodinger's cat in the box. The different options may be unseen, but they open possibilities with an endless chain of eigenstates that have somehow created the amalgamation of me.