Thirty

She rested on her side, forming a small hump in the bed in flannel cloud pajamas. Outside, through the window to the right of her bed the construction in the alley way had ceased miraculously that day and the silence was as nourishing as seawater. She slept endlessly that morning, as if her body was resigning to the winter, protesting her tenacity. Her thoughts were covered by an opaque film caused the infection inside her body, unidentified and location unknown, only her utter exhaustion revealed something was awry in her physiology. She had no cough or fever as evidence, it was simply that her energy gauge showed that of a 85 year old woman.

Her moments of dulled lucidity reflected on her upcoming change of age. The last thirty years flashed before her dreary eyes like a painting, overwhelmed by emotion, the colors were dramatic and deep, reds turned into burgundy and sky blue into deep midnight, the brush strokes were wide and heavy, they stirred an observer's sentiments just from a glance. It was a life of deep solitary feeling, public and private, desperate and brave.

She knew the next thirty would be quite different from the first. She had changed her course, beginning at 29, like a photographer, she had begun to play with the control of her lens, experimenting with the amount of light she allowed into her frame of vision, forcing herself to consider new angles and new subjects. She had begun a battle, a silent hidden war with the dust on her mind, wiping it clean only to find it land again exactly where she had defeated it weeks before.

Despite this turning inside out she was proud of the first thirty years. She embodied all the joy and happiness that circumstance had endowed her and her immovable charisma still followed her wherever she went. The threat the world once posed with its anonymous and known characters, from strangers on the metro to family members at dinner, had evaporated, she no longer trembled in the streets of humanity.

Though many women dreaded the pending milestone, she found comfort in 30. It gave her a neat package with which to appreciate the past and break with it, like a sentimental letter from an old lover. Like a commencement ceremony, it was a discrete moment in time after the arduous ascent, the breath-taking summit and comfortable descent, to acknowledge the beauty, humility and feat of the mountain climb.

And it was unlike any other ritual, because it was her most conscious effort, since she turned 29 she had prepared for this generation change, regularly facing her failures, and investing in her talents. More courageously, she had embarked upon an effort that she presumed would demand years to master, the effort to allow life and human relationships to be as they are.