Facing Forty

There’s a new trend to celebrate the 10^th anniversary of horrible events. We just had the 9/11 ten year memorial and now tomorrow, this Thursday, we will be celebrating the 10^th anniversary of my 30^th birthday.

 I’ve been told the 40s are better. Compared to the 30’s they’d better be but I really don’t believe it.  Not on a deep cellular level.  I’m hitting this birthday the way a bug hits the windshield. I’m bracing for the impact with my life flashing in front of my eyes and my internal organs ceasing in anticipation knowing that this is it, from now on decay is all they can look forward to.  My best girlfriends both have babies and all I can think is – it’s too late, I’m too old – that part of my life is over.  Over and what have I done with it?  Where have the years gone?

I realized I was 29 years old when I first spoke at Story Salon.  29 seems a lifetime away from 40.  And it is – the lifetimes of my children have filled this time and they are finally and too quickly not needing me anymore.  I read a study that says people get happier the older they become.  They concluded in the study that happiness is due to lowered expectations.  That we expect less from life as we age and are more contented with what we have.

When do my expectations lower – will this ever happen to a Virgo, or will I always have expectations of myself that are too high?  When am I going to be content with the life I have – with a life which many people would dream of, the dreams of my childhood – when do I realize that I will never be a wealthy novelist, when do I give up on trying?  Or when do my dreams come true?  And when will I be ok with it either way?  And my other dreams?  I realized the other day that I’ve never been loved.  I told this to my mother and she said to me “Your dad and I have always loved you.”

And they have – my children love me too – but that wasn’t what I meant and she knew it.  But it had to be about her.

The  29^th anniversary of my mother’s 40^th birthday is on Friday the day after mine.  On the weekend of my 21^st birthday she turned 50.  And when I said I wanted to do something fun for this birthday, she said “Well I didn’t get to do anything fun for my 40^th birthday  - and what are we going to do for my birthday Friday?”

My mother is the glass in the windshield I am hitting reflecting back what a lifetime of bitter unfulfilled expectations can give you – what a lifetime of being a Virgo creates.

 

And I try to breath while my lungs cease waiting for the impact because after tomorrow there will be many more days, days which could bring joy and contentment  - if I let them.