"Geez, Nicole, You're 29 ... NOT 19!"

Those were the exact words running through my head when I scrambled upstairs last night at 1:00 a.m.  I had stayed up writing the last blog post and watching The 40 Year-Old Virgin on Bravo, and I have to admit I did so because I knew I was going to have an extra hour of sleep in there (thank you, daylight savings time!). 

In the weeks leading up to my birthday, I have had an increasing distaste for the sound of twenty-nine.  It's just so close to thirty, you know?  Would I want to be nineteen again, though? 

NO WAY!

Nineteen was a rough year for me, but it was the beginning of a lot of defining years in my life.  Don't get me wrong, birth to eighteen were a great foundation and most of the reason I am who I am today.  But nineteen through now have changed that shy girl into the person I am today. And yeah, I can really pinpoint it to year nineteen because that's when I went away to college and everything fell apart.  Quite frankly, I'm lucky to have made it to twenty-nine at all.

I have likely been depressed since I was a tween; the symptoms have been present for that long.  But it took going away to college and having my support system over an hour-and-a-half away to really bring it out in me.  Suddenly, I was left with just myself, with no one to boost me up out of the sadness within me.  I had come with no friends from high school, so I was starting fresh there, and my roommate was just that ... a roommate.  Sure, I was making new friends, but no one wants to be the girl who can't stop crying, so I didn't share my sadness with them.  I just called my mom sobbing ... a lot.  (Again, very sorry, Mom; I know I've probably scarred you for life.)  A few old friends and my boyfriend knew about the sadness, but they were all so far away.  I even remember one friend promising to come visit me if I could go a week without crying; that didn't happen until the second semester of my freshman year, and even then I may have fudged it a little.  Most days, I just wanted that to be the last day - either the crying had to stop or I had to leave this Earth. 

I finally got help, got diagnosed with ADD, and starting trying to figure out which medication would help me.  At first they thought I was bipolar - a common misunderstanding when ADD is coupled with depression - and put me on meds accordingly.  But since I wasn't bipolar, they wrecked my brain and emotions; at one point I remember sitting at my desk, sobbing, pouring out all the pills they had given me to try, and wrestling with myself not to take them all.  Who gives a depressed person a bunch of different types of pills to try and then doesn't take them away when they don't work?!

Anyhow, I called someone, they talked me down from the proverbial ledge, and I stopped taking the pills immediately.  And I threw the old ones away.  And it was a start. 

The day I learned about dysthymia in my abnormal psychology class was the day I was diagnosed with it, and though daunting the diagnosis was quite freeing.  Suddenly I understood that the fog I had been living in for most of my life had a name.  And it helped my therapist figure out what medication to prescribe me.  At that point, I was saddened to find out I would probably have to be on it for the rest of my life, but now I have embraced that concept, knowing those pills help bring out the person I really am inside - beyond the stifling cloud of depression.

(I hesitated sharing all this, but I wanted those of you out there who are struggling to find yourself or to find happiness to know that it will come.  It might take a while, but you'll get there.  You have to be proactive, though.  Find help, seek out those who will stick by you, never stop learning about yourself, keep looking ahead, and know that much better times are in store for you.)

So do I want to be nineteen again?  No.  That time of my life was traumatic and sad and an daily upheaval of everything I had come to know.  I'm glad, and grateful, to be here at twenty-nine knowing what I know, being who I am.  Would I like to have any part of that nineteenth year back now?  Maybe my abs ... my belly button is constantly frowning after two pregnancies, and the tattoo on my hip now has a c-section scar clipping its wings.  But I got that belly button and that scar from my two kids, so I really can't complain. 

The long and short of it is, I'm happy to be turning twenty-nine today.  Thinking back over the last ten years, I have experienced a lot - I stayed at Albion for two years, then transferred to MSU; my boyfriend and I broke up and got back together seven times, then he proposed and we got married, moved to Dearborn, moved back to Grand Rapids, and now live three doors down from my in-laws.  I've traveled a lot: Wyoming, Hawaii, Italy, St. John, Paris, Cape Cod, and Florida a couple times.  A lot of love has been added to my life; beyond getting married, I've become an aunt to three, a pseudo-aunt to two, and a mom to two beautiful, wonderful children.  I'm more self-aware than I was at nineteen, and everyday I learn a little more about myself.  And I'm finally deciding who I want to be ... and I'm learning to love who I am.