Dispatches from the Goblin City

You may not know this, but I volunteer at my semi-local food pantry every week and I've been doing this for around a year now. I volunteer my time because I receive a food box every month and I firmly believe in paying it forward. I don't have money to donate to food pantries or excess food, what I have is time and that is just as important. Anyway, I started volunteering last summer and I didn't really think it would lead me on a journey of self discovery, but that is exactly where I am. Last October I was asked to participate in a Voices Focus Group where I was asked to speak about my experiences with my food pantry and my history with pantries and what concerns I had about the future and the like. I showed up and impressed the team with eloquence and wit and passion for pantries. Yeah, I didn't know I had a passion for food pantries until people from the Oregon Food Bank told me that we are in danger of budget cuts and donation cuts. Needless to say that lit

In a few hours I will officially be 30 years of age. Yikes. 30 sounds like such a significant number to me. And as you can probably guess, I'm not handling it very well. Don't get me wrong, I'm not having a meltdown or feeling the need to feel younger by surrounding myself with teenagers. I just don't know how to feel, really, about being 30. I've always looked at thirty-somethings as true adults; they're married, have kids, multiple cars, a mortgage and have traveled around. I know these are broad generalizations, but you have to understand that I have exactly none of those things. My life went down a decidedly different path from those generalizations I mentioned. Instead of settling down to start my own family I stayed at home and took care of my grandparents and my mother because they all started loosing their minds around the same time. It is very hard to maintain your own sanity when you are the only sane person in the house. And that wasn't just m