things I never thought I would do at age 30

There is an ad campaign with the tagline 'Life comes at you fast' (it's efficacy is suspect however, as I recall the tagline but not the product it is associated with...maybe insurance?).  I was thinking exactly that yesterday while I was at Cotton Babies in Vancouver picking out newborn cloth diapering supplies since Quinn has been burning through disposables as we wait for him to weigh enough to move into the cloth diapers we have.  And it wasn't just the whole 'cloth diapering' thing that got me to think about how rapidly things change, it was the whole 'having a baby' which led to the cloth diapering thing.  All of it got me to thinking what things I would not have expected I would be doing at age 35 and, in an effort to narrow the scope of things I heretofore was utterly incredulous about, I am only going to go back to the tender age of 30.

- First and foremost: baby.  I was definitely NOT having one of those at age 30.  Honestly I felt very strongly that way until 34.  Truthfully, 34 and up to the point when the positive pregnancy test rolled in.  It was a lifestyle I was not comfortable with and entailed changes that I could not envision myself making (and still have a hard time with in all honesty).  Gone are the days of quick runs to the store, last minute happy hour plans, and sleeping in on weekends.  I am okay with it, but I will miss it all terribly.

- Cloth diapering.  I thought this was the realm of hippies and involved all manner of safety pins and patience beyond my imagining.  It still will never be 'easy' like disposables, but it also wont be nearly as hard as I thought.  I will try to remember that the first time I have to wash a batch of poopy diapers.

- Owning a lawnmower that runs on pre-gas powered tech.  I used to see them in Archie comics and in old television shows and think how archaic and inefficient.  Then we researched and bought a push mower and I think how much easier it is not having to deal with gasoline, oil, and the noise and pollutants that come with.  Not for every type of lawn, but works great for ours.  Still, never thought I would own one.

- Gardening.  I thought this best left to the same hippies that cloth diapered.  After all, who has time for it.  It is much easier (and cheaper in the short run at least) to just buy produce.  Well, after buying a few hundred dollars worth of dirt and supplies (another thing that I did not think I would ever do), I actually find gardening cathartic.  Who knew?

- Pickling.  Speaking of gardening, I now pickle things.  Something I pictured mostly happened in communes and farms.  Did not see that one coming.

- Running my own clinic.  I will be giving this up soon to move to part time, and it will be much harder than I thought it would be to walk away from.  5 years ago I was just starting nursing school and less than 3 years in the field I was running my own outpatient infusion clinic.  I would never have guessed that I would go from trying to figure out how to take blood pressure with a manual sphygmometer to administering $30K infusion medications without another soul in the clinic.

I know there are countless other things to add to the list and it will continue to grow as life evolves, but damn if life isnt very very different from what I would have guessed it to be at age 30.  God knows what things I thought I would never do will come to pass by 40.  Hopefully it doesn't involve voting Republican or getting really into Jazz music.  But then again, I have been wrong before.