As I was putting the rubbish out on the street last night in my floral P'Jamie's, I looked across the road to the crystallized harbour and the row of young neighbors sitting on the sea wall. They were in their twenties and just getting started for a rip roaring sunday night party, and I was nearly 40 and ready for bed. There is no use denying the passing of time and changing of priorities.
There have been a few reminders from the universe of passing time. My first grey. The ache in my back. The way kids I don't know refer to me as 'that lady.' Ever increasing amounts of facial hair. My optometrist suggesting I leave eye surgery a few years so that it could also correct the quote "shortsightedness that also comes with middle age".
My sister tells me the year between 39 and 40 is the worst, there's no escaping the passing days as they tick down but once you reach the date it gets easier to accept, there's a certain freedom, you never really get any older, birthdays cease to matter. I like that plan.
So far each decade has brought a new and exciting set of challenges and thrills. My teens were all about learning and setting myself apart from my family, my twenties were a festival of travels and work and carving out a life. My thirties so far (and they're not yet over) were all about the breeding and love and a learning curve so steep I am struggling to catch my breath at the top.
So, in a year's time I will hit 40, and statistically speaking I am likely to have
lived nearly half my life, (at least half of my continent life).
I have a year to work on what my 40's are going to about. I have an inkling of a plan to make them simply about being me.