So my 12-day vacation from the blog turned into twice that. Whoops. It’s so easy to get out of the habit of blogging, especially when so much is going on offline.

In the days since I last blogged, I spent a week and a half bouncing among San Francisco, Portland and Seattle. That included a lot of eating, drinking beer and meeting the Modern Love Machine’s extended family. I’ve suffered some serious jetlag/exhaustion. I’ve fallen off the training schedule bus and have almost climbed fully back on (almost). And I turned 30.

I also went on a drive-in double-feature date with the MLM in my absence and managed to fall asleep during both Tangled and Spider-Man (see aforementioned exhaustion).

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention — Saturday was not only Bastille Day. It was my 30th birthday.

I can’t quite wrap my brain around why so many people bemoan entering their 30s.** I, for one, am extremely excited to leave behind my 20s, a decade I wouldn’t relive for anything in the world. That said, the excitement of turning 30 still didn’t motivate me to do much to mark the actual anniversary of my birth, which is my typical M.O. I’ve been to so many 30th birthday parties this year, I just didn’t feel I had the emotional energy to be the center of attention of one. In lieu of a party, the MLM and I spent a lovely, quiet weekend in Memphis with my family. I’m glad to have done that, but now that I’m on the other side I do feel perhaps I’ve undercelebrated a birthday that I had long been looking forward to. I have never figured out where my birthday balancing line is.

Anyway, to mark it here on the ol’ blog, I’m happy to introduce something I’ve been working on for about six months and even longer in my head. I’m posting up in the contents bar a link to my Life List (which means you have to visit the actual website if you want to see it). The 30 before 30 stuff seemed like too much pressure at a time in my life when I couldn’t handle any more of it, and the term ‘bucket list’ is so unromantic. So I’m following in the footsteps of some of my favorite bloggers and going with the Life List.

The only rhyme or reason to my list is to include things that I want to accomplish in my life, big and small. I included a few things that I have already accomplished with the idea that had I started the Life List a long time ago, they would have been on it. The funny thing is, I’ve crossed a few things off even since I seriously began working on it six months ago. The list is a living one; that is, it’s a constant work in progress. I will add things to it as they occur to me, and I will eliminate things when I decide they no longer interest me. The list does not have a finish line because I don’t ever want to reach the end of it. That means some things will never get crossed off, I just don’t know which ones that will be.

As I achieve my Life List items, I’ll write about them. When I’m in blogging lulls, I’ll go back and write about the previously achieved items or maybe a post or two about why certain things are on my list.

I’m publishing this list as a birthday gift to myself. My 20s were a decade of growth and learning a lot about who I am and what I want my life to be. Now that I have a better sense of myself, I want to squeeze as much out of life as possible going forward. This list is a way to keep myself on track.

**The funny thing for me and all current or former journalists of the old-school variety is that the symbol -30- is an old-fashioned way to mark the end of a story. I’m taking it now to mark the end of the mess that was my 20s.