Today, I turned 40 years old. Forty. Wowzers.
Common life experience: When I was a teenager and my dad turned 40, I felt like that was basically half-a-foot in death’s doorway. At the very least, it marked a passage into being “old.” And now, that “old” person is … me! What?!
As I so often say, my mother isn’t old enough to have a 40-year-old daughter! Seriously! (She happens to agree!)
When I was a kid, teenager, and even in my 20s, I would lament how young I looked. People didn’t take me seriously, I felt, because I’ve always looked younger than I am. I distinctly remember my (most favorite) Aunt Dalis saying, “Sweetie, just wait ’til you’re older. You’ll be grateful then.”
And to be honest, I’m not sure that moment has yet come. Because if you want to know the truth, blog readers, I don’t care a bit that I’m 40 now. I mean, sure, it does sound different than “I’m in my 30s.” Just as 30 came and went without more than a shrug from me, though, I’ve felt underwhelmed by the sensation of having moved into my fourth decade today.
What I have felt is serenity, though. In those 14,610 days I’ve lived thus far, I’ve had some truly amazing experiences. Allow me to share some of my most favorite moments.
The day I graduated high school — May 1995 — I was milling around outside MHHS preparing for the ceremony, and the man who directed the gifted & talented program (he took it over from its initial director) came up to me, beaming. “It’s so great to see our G&T alums going on to such great colleges!” And I got to say, triumphantly, “Actually, I wasn’t good enough for your program. I never did get off the wait list.” Smug smile, eight years in the making.
In college, I felt overwhelmed by the mass of humanity swirling around me in DC. I was a small-town girl and missed home. I felt out of place. I was prepared to transfer back to a school nearer to home, and then March arrived and I went down to the Tidal Basin with a Descartes reading for my Honors Symposium class and read it on the steps of the Jefferson Memorial. As I walked around and marveled at the cherry blossoms in full, explosive bloom, I knew I could never give up the opportunity to live and study in the rich environment of our nation’s capital city. I could so easily flash forward to a day when C-SPAN was covering an event at GW, and there I’d be, watching from hundreds of miles away. I resolved that day to stay. I’ve never regretted that decision.
I remember the moment — the very day! — that I knew I was born to teach. It was (oddly enough) my birthday in 2000. I was at a one-day seminar organized and produced by the marketing firm where I was working. I had put together a skit with my colleague and good friend Tim. We performed the skit, with Tim performing so exaggeratedly that I damn near broke character several times. I then gave a hurried 15-minute talk to the assembled dozens about what I’d learned from my college internship (which just happened to be the very topic of the seminar). I felt a rush of adrenaline and satisfaction as I talked. And I knew. I just knew. I was going to teach, and I was going to love it.
In high school, my senior yearbook quote was one from Joseph Campbell that spoke to me in mysterious ways, even as a teen: “Follow your bliss, and doors will open where there were no doors before.” I couldn’t have possibly known that that quote would come to define my life, at least up ’til now. I have consistently followed the breadcrumbs left for me by my passions and the universe, and I have always landed into whatever job, academic program, or personal enrichment opportunity that was exactly right for me in that moment. At times, I have marveled at how effortlessly my life’s major inflection points have appeared … but I have come to understand that my 17-year-old self was wiser in her bones than I could’ve possibly realized at the time.
Certainly my life has had its challenges — most of them having to do with Campbell’s poetic walls never turning into the doors I so desperately wanted them to become — and I mourn the loss of too many friends and family members who have fallen out of my circle or who have passed on too soon. But what I have taken from those challenges and losses is a deep-seeded appreciation for the now, the today, the moment unfolding Right Now. I am grateful to have learned those lessons. I am grateful that I’ve been able to turn loss into appreciation for all that I do have. That, too, is a gift, and I know those who were taken from us too soon would be proud to know they have served me so well, even if it meant having to say goodbye too soon.
So truly, I would not go back in time and change a thing. I don’t wish I were younger. I’m proud of what I’ve done, and I’m proud to be here today, stronger, happier, living more authentically and more fully than I’ve ever done before. It took those challenges and those inflection points for me to become the 40-year-old woman I am today. As it turns out, I kind of like her.
