Soon I’ll be relaxingly taking in my 39th birthday. This is the dreaded year that everyone complains they will no longer be ‘young’ and that the equally dreaded 40’s looms on the horizon. To me, personally, it will be yet another day – like so many others I’ve been experiencing. Cleaning, maybe working on some of my beloved dolls or bracelets, and just general day-to-day things that I find myself working on. Its just another day, and one that is no different than the day before or the day after save I’ve marked time I’ve spent on this Earth drawing breath. It doesn’t change who I am, who I’ve become or who I’m going to be. I will still be mom, and partner, and sister, and cousin and coworker and friend. Nothing shall change with the passing of the day.
I am reminded, again, of what it means to grow up – to be responsible, to act a certain way and with a certain expectation of maturity and wisdom. To be professional and serious and all those things we associate with a certain number of years passed around the sun. I still balk at it, I’ve found. It’s an odd sort of Peter Pan like mentality where I want to be ME yet rail against the desire to ‘be my age’ and progress professionally. After all, I’m almost 40 (gasp) and I still enjoy loud music with screeching guitar solos, dressing in all black and going to Disney regularly to escape the realistic gloom that hangs over most people it seems anymore.
So what does that mean for me?
To be honest I can’t rightly say and I think that, with anything in life, that’s the jist of it. Each day brings new endeavors, new opportunities, new learning experiences. Age is a number, which I would have to say that actress Olivia de Havilland would have to agree with. It’s what you make of your age that is ultimately important; who you are at your core. I am a good many things, some wondrous, some wicked, some sad and some inspiring. I know I encompass more than I even am aware of.
What I hope, as a new day dawns soon on a new chapter in my chronological cycle, is that my children can be proud to say that I’m their mother. That my partner can look upon me with love, affection and pride for the woman they love, that my parents can be glad to call me their child and that my coworkers can speak kind of the person I am and the worker I happen to be. Beyond that though, what I hope for and still strive (and at times struggle) to obtain is a peace within myself that I am exactly who I’m supposed to be, where I’m supposed to be and content with whom that person happens to be.
The Greek definition of Happiness is “the joy you feel striving towards your potential.” May this new year provide me more opportunities to recognize that journey and realize the potential that is, ultimately, simply me.
