Turning #@%^&!

Ok- it has happened. 10 years have passed and I am faced with the knowledge that I am now the age that I deemed to be "old" when I was only 10. I know I am not old, but there is something about remembering how you felt about age as a child, that puts a twist on birthdays beyond your mid twenties. I approach this time in life, humbled by my "oldness" (WHATEVER!!!), but thankful for the painful growth spurts the I have behind me.
I think it's fair to say that a girls teenage years pretty much suck. Jr. High is the WORST!!! You couldn't pay me a million dollars to re-live that! All the hormones and the uncertainty, short boys and akward school dances, only served to remind us how great life would be once we got beyond that point and hit high school.
Highschool was a relief to reach, but we still spent it dreaming of being old enough to leave home and the freedom we would find outside of our parents "loving" grasp.
Our twenties are spent "discovering" who we were, what we believed in, and breaking into a new way of thinking and living that we could finally call our own. A decade of lessons learned and mistakes made (some bigger than others) that taught us more about who we didn't want to be than who we did.
There were endless meals of ramen noodles, rice, beans and of course, coffee. It was a time when our bodies were somehow able to manage staying up til 3am and waking up only a few hours later to attend a biology lecture or meet a friend for breakfast before a big exam. Hormones were more in balance, but our judgement was still severely impaired and we walked away with some battle wounds that would leave scars on both ourselves and those around us.
Mind you I've only been 30 (there, I said it!) for 8 hours, but I look forward to the next 10 years. I hear it is the decade when others opinions matter little, confidence in one's self is not determined by appearance and an understanding of the truely valuable things in life sinks in, making the importance of each day a little easier to grasp.
So bring it on 30! Do your best (not really. It would be nice if you were a kind year [insert shrugged shoulders and sheepish grin here])! Let's see what the next 10 years brings.

P.S. Does that mean in 10 years I'll be 40????
AUGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!