I occasionally contemplate my mortality.

Today is the first day of August. This pains me so. 

I love the summertime, for one thing. More than any other season, I am happiest when I'm dripping with sweat and can barely breathe from the weight of this wonderful New England humidity. Some would say I'm a masochist for it, and they may be right. I just LOVE that feeling you get when you sit down in your car after work, the car that has been baking under the blazing sun in the parking lot all day. The heat doesn't hit you so much as it envelopes you, traps you and smothers you, and it seems like you can either close your eyes and wither and die or just breathe through it, feel your heart speed up, and roll on. 

But August, usually the hottest month of the year in these here parts, is bittersweet, because it means summer is almost over. Elise will start school again in four weeks, I will be back to getting up at the crack of dawn, suffering through those winter mornings when it's not only freezing, BUT STILL DARK OUT when I rise. 

My August is jam packed with fun - so many fun things are about to go on in the next few weeks, I can hardly wait for them. But then, September will come. I love the fall too, but part of me will always hate it for taking away my sun and sweat. (Sick, right?) 

And then, my birthday. I will be 29 this year.

Honestly, there are days when I am surprised to realized that I'm not actually nineteen anymore, because that is the way I often feel. I think of my age, I contemplate the length of my life, and I am shocked that I am this old. I don't feel like I've done enough yet, I don't feel like I've seen enough yet, I don't think I've loved enough yet to die.

It's not like I think I'm going to die tomorrow - although I could. And it's not like I'm crazy and vain, obsessing over turning 30 like it's going to be my mid-life and deserves a crisis.. But it could be. It could be my mid-life. And I'm not ready to die yet - there is so much more to be done.

I made a list, just as tons of other people have made this same list, and I'm putting it here for reference. And so it stares me down constantly. So I don't give up.

30 Before 30

1. Get my sixth tattoo
2. Visit Steph
3. Eat at Yummy Noodles in NYC
4. Live alone again
5. Date
6. Try 30 new recipes
7. Take Elise to the zoo
8. Make $100 from something I wrote
9. Throw a party
10. Road trip with Alisha
11. Be a size 12 again (this will be the hardest thing)
12. Sing Karaoke with Brian
13. Read Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
14. Go to the drive-in
15. Try a yoga class
16. Get CPR certified
17. Donate blood at least once
18. Teach Elise to swim
19. Find a writing group
20. Meet an online friend
21. Visit the grandparents in Florida
22. Girls Only Bed & Breakfast vacation
23. Blog every day for a month
24. Get a significant raise / Or get a new job
25. Consult a psychic
26. Self-pub that book I wrote in May 2011
27. Sail on a sailboat
28. Go to the dentist
29. Invest in something
30. Forgive myself

The countdown starts today.