The “F” Word
40. What?! Not me. Yes, me. I’m turning 40. I’m convinced I’m only 30.
30 didn’t phase me. I know to a number of my friends, it was jarring. To me, I was excited to be out of my 20s and on to my 30s. It didn’t feel pivotal. This 40 thing is definitely phasing me. This number feels like it has some significance in the direction of my life. It seems that choices in my early 40s will impact me greatly, and that is when my brain goes into the mode of, “what do I need to be doing to make my 40s more fun and more of who I want to be?”
It’s the obvious that people question me about and can see: I’m single with no kids. People want to know, will I get married? Will I have kids? I don’t have an answer for them other than that I believe that what is meant to be will be, whether I stress about it or not. I often get a response that I need to do something to make a relationship happen. I don’t argue their point. I just do my own thing. When I think about my life and where I am right now, I’m so grateful for everything. Nothing is perfect in life, but nothing is “wrong” in my life. What can I add to my life to enhance the quality of it? I think the answer is a relatively simple one: I want more personal time to enjoy life and spend more time on the things that make me happy and really keep me grounded and healthy. If that involves meeting a great guy and having a family, that works. If it doesn’t, then that will work too. I’m not sure that people want to believe this answer, but there is not much I can do about it (nor will I try to convince them).
In the meantime, I’ve got a big birthday coming up and I love to travel. So, more often than not, I travel somewhere (usually somewhere warm to give me sun from the long winter) for my birthday. Originally, I had plans with my good friend from college (who is also turning 40) to spend it in Paris. Despite having no husband and no children, I’m around-the-clock busy, so it is an effort to create the space for anything, but there was something pulling at me and I was avoiding booking the trip. That is, I wasn’t consciously saying, hold off on Paris, but I just wasn’t carving out the time to book what I was so excited to do. Sure enough, the universe changed the direction of my sails and with that, instead of going East to Paris, I will be flying West to one of my favorite places on this earth: Hawaii. If you have been to Hawaii, you know why it is one of my favorite places. If you have not, I’ll do my best to explain why Hawaii is so amazing. As soon as you step off the airplane to Hawaii, you can feel the energy is different than any other place you have been before. It’s like you just walked onto a cloud. It’s like a giant hug. There is so much beauty and it is so lush that it resets your entire body. It centers you in every way. It’s like magic. Energetically, they say Hawaii is the heart of Mother Earth. I believe it.
My goal is to start my 40s off enjoying more and spend more time on the things that keep me grounded, happy, and healthy, Hawaii is the perfect place for me to be celebrating. Until then, I have a list as long as the minutes that make up a day of things to do before I leave for my trip in April. I’ve got a great deal of balls in the air right now, one of them being that I’m moving just seven blocks away to a new apartment at the end of this month. I don’t know that I’ve ever been so excited to move. So, on top of reflecting on my impending age, I’m being forced to look at my things and ask myself: what do I really need, and what can I give away so someone else can use it? I really do this on a regular basis, because I like to keep energy going, but moving makes you ask this question more thoroughly and look at every little thing. In the process of looking through my things, I have realized that I have more than enough and that I really do love the “things” that make up my environment. They literally make me happy. There are also things I know I need to improve upon and I will work at those things as best I can.
Moving is a big energetic shift that mirrors my birthday, and I’m excited for both. I’m finally going from a studio to a one bedroom apartment. Talk about being civilized in your 40s. I will start my next chapter doing what I like to do in a place I love, where I will write down my goals going forward. I’ve done this since I was in my 20s. I look back on the things that I wrote and marvel at how I forgot about things I had written, and despite my forgetting what I wrote down, I created many of the things that were on those pages. I can’t wait to sit down and reflect on what my fingers put on my blank sheet of paper. Then, for the next ten years, I will watch life unfold and see what the cards will show me. In the meantime, I look forward to having each card of life revealed, and I’ll just have to go with the flow.