Turning the Page
written by Sara Torbett

I’m approaching 30.  Talk about a page turner!   The optimist that fills my brain and every nook and cranny in my being has decided to play hide and seek for now.  She’s hiding-I’m seeking.

I remember my 20’s with vivid detail.  First there were the carefree college days. Filled to the brim with late nights, best friends, and opportunity so thick and sweet you could cut it with a knife and serve it with sprinkles on top.   There was also the cow pasture across from my dorm sophomore year, a foretelling peek into my future.

After college came a boot/overall wearing man and talk of cows and hollers.  Was I ready to write a new chapter with someone who could utter five words, to my fifty? I listened and realized this man had a story to tell! I wanted in, cows and all. I sure hadn’t seen THAT part of the story coming (although the cows sophomore year should have clued me in)

We settled into the pages, fresh ink spilling rapidly, telling of the bliss of newlyweds.  A country home, walks on the farm, building fence.  Looking for mushrooms and counting cows.  Dates on the back deck.

“First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the baby…” well, you know the rest.  There were talks about bringing a baby into our newish chapter of life.  Starting a whole new book, really.   We cut deep into two BIG slices of opportunity when we ended up having two babies in less than two years! Motherhood is a lot like farm life.  There’s planting season, and time to watch things grow.  There are grey, cold days where you simply want to feel warmth.  There are carefree days where babies laugh and say “mama” and you feel much like the butterflies flitting about outside.  There are days you know will be on repeat, pages you’ll read over and over.  Then there are surprises, page turner days.  Days with new calves, gardens beginning to sprout, babies walking for the first time.

Life has happened because I turned the pages.  Looking back at my 20’s I realize I’ve traded boulevards for county roads.  Trolleys for tractor rides.  Learning about cows instead of couture.  I wouldn’t rewrite a single page.

As my 30’th birthday looms, I can’t help but ask Miss Optimist to come out to play.  I’m entering my 30’s turning the page with a whole lot more confidence and wisdom than the start of the decade before it. I’m confident that sometimes our best laid plans aren’t really what our heart yearns for the most anyway.  That somewhere in between the fence rows and tilled garden rows is a certain kind of ease that can only come from farm girl living.  I’m not sure what the pages will hold with this new decade. But I’m ready to see.  I hope they include a red barn with chippy paint, junk sales, farm parties, craft days, and maybe even authoring a book.  I think I’ll celebrate in style, with a cake among the cows.  Bring on the sprinkles.