On Turning Thirty and Why My Husband Is Amazing

I had no qualms about turning thirty. I was ready, am ready, to enter into a decade of love and adventure and family and security so much I cannot even begin to describe it. I won't try. All you need to know is that I left my twenties behind without nary a tear shed.

For my birthday this year I did not plan any special celebrations aside from the general Fourth of July merriment. It occurred to me, I guess, but I was busy. Also, I had a pretty good idea that Husband was planning something on his own.My suspicion was based on that he told me 'I am planning something' and that I had to take a day off of work the week of my birthday. There was a surprise afoot and I didn't want to ruin it.

(Once, when I was leaving PA, my group of friends at the time were planning some kind of going away for me. Naturally I did not know about it [as it was a surprise]. Nearing the day of my departure, I announced to one of my friends that I was thinking about throwing a going away party. Furious, she replied "Well we were planning a going away party for you but it was supposed to be a suprise! God Juliet, why do you have to ruin everything? Since then I have been very careful not to interfere with anything that might resemble, possibly, a surprise.)

The day of my birthday I worked off my hangover from the day before and spent a low key evening grilling at my friend B's house down the street. We had a couple of beers and grilled vegetables and steak and watched B's friend's baby giggle and play in a bowl of water to keep cool, all of us deeply envious that we could not strip down to a diaper. It was a lovely evening and we were in bed by nine thirty.

The following day I woke early despite being able to sleep in. We had to do laundry but it was surprise day. What would it be? Pack a bag? Where are we going? I was like an eager child bothering their parents to have their dessert right up until three o'clock when Husband said we could get in the car to go.

I rode silently, waiting for a hint while he tried to remember the route without putting up the GPS. (Husband goes almost nowhere without his GPS.)

"Shit, I don't know where to go," he said, dismayed. "How to I get to the airport from here?"

"EEEeeee!" I squealed, "We're going to the airport?"

"Yes, just tell me how to get there!"

I directed him and off we went - to the airport.

After parking and the shuttle, Husband took over. He knew it would be quite a task trying not to spoil the surprise. He wanted to keep it a secret right up until the baggage carousel at our destination. Me, I personally would have told me right then. I couldn't possibly fathom how he was going to keep me from knowing where we were going with all of the screens and announcements, but Husband had a plan. It looked like this:

Blindfold plus headphones plus hands over my ears going 'lalalala' equals  difficult in a busy airport.

There was also some business of covering my ears and singing to myself and yes it may have been a bit of a spectacle but you know, I really wanted to be surprised! So I played along.

Would you believe that the whole thing was totally successful right up until landing? I just couldn't block the pilot out when he said "We're beginning our descent into Denver."

Denver. I may have thought we were going to Texas or to Las Vegas maybe but when the pilot said Denver I fell in love with the man next to me all over again. (Thankfully Husband was seated beside me.)

I haven't been back to Colorado in ten years.

This is not totally, entirely true. I was in Denver once for work in 2007 but it didn't feel like a visit. Even visiting the Denver Zoo hadn't made that trip feel like anything but work. It didn't feel like 'going home'.

This time, though, I was with someone I loved and I knew before he told me that I would be seeing my two best childhood friends (at very least). This time I was really going home.

In the airport he tried valiantly to throw me off the trail, saying that my friends were both busy and that he and I would be on our own for the weekend. I almost believed him when he told me he thought we were going to take a cab from the airport but I knew he'd been planning amongst my friends since for some time.

Regardless, when J showed up with her two children in tow I was elated to see her.

"Hey pretty lady, can I take you home?" she asked.

J and her babies

Her children were half grown. An almost ten year old girl - the spitting image of her mother when we were that age - stood next to her adorable not at all a baby brother. I hadn't seen her daughter since a few days after she'd been born - wrinkly and pink without distinct physical characteristics or real personality. And now she was ten.

It struct me as wildly bizarre to see my childhood friend as a mother. We'd quite literally grown up together - our mothers had met when we were in diapers. And though I had seen her since she had her second child it wasn't with them in tow and somehow I didn't really connect them to her. It was so real now. Unavoidable, I guess. We had become adults.

J kindly took us to get something to eat and then deposited us at our hotel for a good nights sleep. In the morning I woke to see the mountains.

See the mountains? (And the dirt in my camera?)

Where I grew up there were desert and mountain terrains, so some of me feels like I am a desert girl and some like a mountain one, but neither of those sides of me have been properly fed in quite sometime. Waking up to see the mountains, no matter how far from my viewfinder, was delightful.

After a breakfast and some chatting with the friendly locals (read: anyone we spoke to), we decided that with our very limited time we would drive to the mountains. We stopped by S's house and were on our way.

All the pretty horses...

S, too, had changed so much since the last time I saw her. It had only been a year, actually, but it suddenly she was very much in love and surprisingly settled down. She lives with her boyfriend and his two children, playing happily at the role of stepmom. I never in a million years pictured I would see her enjoy such a thing and was no less than shocked to see a wedding magazine on the floor of her apartment.

"We're talking about it," she said, blushing.

God, when did we become adults? I thought. And I felt least like an adult out of the three of us though I am sure if you asked any of us fifteen years ago who would be married with children first it would have been me.

The Stanley Hotel. Not so scary after all.

Much to the boredom of Husband (poor dear) we spent nearly every hour reminiscing about things we'd done and people we'd known as children.

"Do you remember that time we were going to Vegas," said J, "And we had to borrow you're mom's car because you wrecked yours? I cannot believe she let two seventeen year old girls do that. Your mom, of all people!! How did we convinced her to loan us her car???"

"And then we lost the hubcaps!!" I laughed. "I chased them down the middle of the highway! There is a picture of that somewhere."

"Oh my God, remember the gold pants?" cried S. "I hated those pants."

"No! I loved those pants!!" I replied, hysterical.

"And you would only ever where it with that huge oversized shirt?" S laughed.

Aren't we cute? MOUNTAINS!!

"Hey! That was because it was that was the only shirt my mom would ever let me wear with them! She didn't want me to go without underwear and that one covered my butt."

And on and on.

We drove to Estes Park. If we'd had more time we would have drive all the way to Grand Junction - I haven't seen my home town in ten years - but we were limited by the hours in the day. A trip to the mountains was the next best thing.

And more mountains!! It was so good for my soul.

We toured the Stanley hotel and I took pictures in the hopes I would capture a ghost in one, but there was nothing caught but three good friends who had a million years of stories between them. It was far and away the most special gift my husband could have ever given me.

Who's that creepy guy? I don't know.

Roses in a beautiful garden.

and more roses in a beautiful garden...

Isn't this bathroom creepy? Let's see if we can photograph a ghost! (Nope.)

After hours and hours of trips down memory lane (and a tour of S's photos from high school) Husband and I didn't have enough energy to go out that night with the girls. I felt infinitely older than I am. I wanted to blame the altitude, but really I didn't want to be hungover on our flight home. It was such a mature decision. We promised that we'd be back for a longer visit so that Husband could see more of Denver and I could show him Grand Junction.

Beautiful storm rolling over the plains.

It will not be ten years before the next trip.