Hello, Forty!

I'm officially forty.  I don't feel any different.  I suppose I really didn't think I'd feel different--didn't think I'd wake up with bricks for ankles or a few extra hairy moles on my chin.  But forty is such an odd number.  Well, it's an even number, actually, but it's strange to think that I've been on this earth for forty years.  When I was young and heard of people being forty, that meant they were near death.   I feel quite young, to my surprise and delight.  Let me rephrase that; I feel the same.  My friend who turned forty just two days before me warned, "Don't do it!" as if I had some magic spell to reverse aging and turn back time.  For all the woes and jokes, and for all the time we spend wishing we were younger, how many of us would really turn back time if we could?  How many of us would want to relieve high school or our twenties?  Or even our thirties, for that matter?
I don't know about you, but I spent a lot of my youth feeling, well, unsettled and awkward.  In high school, I started with braces on my teeth and even after I had them removed my sophomore year, I still spent much of my time feeling too fat, too lonely, too disconnected.  And I had friends and boyfriends, and I was a decent athlete and student.  So what does that say?  Does everybody feel out of sorts in high school, no matter how popular?  Maybe the homecoming queen never felt weird.  I wouldn't know about that.  I always felt under-pretty also.  Even though I needed the athletic body I had, I wished I was slimmer and prettier than I was.  And there was nothing I could do about it.  I suppose I could have stopped eating Reese's Peanut Butter Cups at break time.  But I was easily burning those calories during basketball practice, right?
My twenties were mixed with the uncertainty about my future and the angst about my relationships.  I wanted to be loved by everybody, even those I couldn't have cared less about.  I wanted the boys to want me and the girls to want to be like me.  Now that I think about it, I wanted this in high school as well.  What creates that feeling of emptiness and desire in a girl?  It's not like I had nobody in my corner.  I had a loving family--a family who CHOSE me, of all things.  Most people have families who have to put up with them because of some birthright responsibility nonsense.  I had friends, teammates, coaches who surrounded me.  But for some reason, that was never enough.  I wanted an all-consuming love.  And so despite the fact that I sought it out, I continued to fall short of achieving the thing I wanted most.
After college, I began teaching full time almost immediately.  My students ate me alive for a year or two.  I cried a lot.  I cursed the piles of journals and essays I'd collected.   I became paralyzed at the thought of planning tomorrow's lesson because it was eleven p.m. and there was a stack of papers in the corner that was tall enough to ride Space Mountain, and I had no idea how I was going to make the Puritans interesting or why my students even needed to know about the Puritans in an English class.  But I showed up every day, and I never died.
Two years into my teaching career, the WNBA was formed.  I seriously contemplated trying out.  I thought I could give a good go of it, even though I was relatively out of basketball-playing shape.  I kept saying that I should do it or always regret not doing it.  I let the chance pass me by, largely because I didn't truly believe I could make the league, but also because I was just too damn tired from teaching.
When I was twenty-six, I married a man I shouldn't have married.   But again, I was so glad that someone wanted me, I did what I was supposed to do when someone asks you to marry them: I said "Yes."  Four years later, we got divorced, and the feelings of inferiority continued.  I'm glossing over this part of my life purposely.  None of us has time for it.
My thirties became a time of soul-searching, spirit-discovering, character-building, and more confidence than I'd ever known.  Those years were pretty great, but I let my career eat me up.  If I let my students eat me alive in my early twenties, I let the workaholism break me in my late thirties.  I was more secure than ever in my career--I felt like a veteran, true to the task of teaching every day, dedicated to helping my students become better thinkers and writers.  But I was ready to crack.  And so I decided to take a break.  My personal life during those years was, well, pretty stagnant.  After thirty-five, I'd say, is where I began to be consumed by my job.  I was too tired to think about having a personal life.  I tried, but I'd often back out of commitments because I was too tired by the time the event came around.  Sometimes I fell victim to the migraine.  I suffered from about three migraines a month, the worst of them lasting two weeks.  My health was in serious jeopardy.  I felt least like myself and most like a shell of a person who robotically slammed the alarm clock every morning, slept while showering, and drove to work in a frantic haze.  I was rushed.  All the time.  I inhaled food during lunch break, and I was perpetually late to appointments. I stayed in my pajamas all day every Saturday just to attempt to recover from the week's attack.  I put off the grading of papers until the last minute, where I would whine about how many hours it was taking me to do them justice.  And I stopped working out regularly.
A wonderful thing that happened in my thirties was that I did manage to find time to fall in love with an amazing man, to whom I am now married.   And I did some traveling around the world.  So my thirties were not a complete waste.  But I'd gotten to the point of no return--if I would have kept on like I was, what would I be--who would I be--ten, twenty, thirty years down the road?  Would I look back on my life's accomplishments and see a woman I barely recognized?  Or worse, would I see a woman I didn't want to claim as myself?
Now, I am forty.  Forty.  Forty of anything is a lot.  And I have the wrinkles to show for it.  But forty is not a curse.  Being here for forty years means I have learned to be grateful for what I have, for who I am, and for the people in my life.  Forty means those wrinkles I have are proof of laughter and experience.  Forty means that the body I have may not be the body I'd hoped for, but it's the body that's carried me through my life.  This body was homeless once as a child.  This body was an All-American basketball player.  This body suffered life-threatening blood clots.  This body has walked inside of the Great Pyramids, skinny-dipped in the Mediterranean, traversed the streets of London; this body has taken me anywhere and everywhere I've wanted to go.  And ultimately, it hasn't let me down.  I'm thinking that forty is a gift--a gift I give to myself by allowing it to happen gracefully.
Forty-year-old self, I will not hate you or berate you.  I will not speak ill of you to your face or behind your back.  I will not compare you to others or criticize your weaknesses.  I will not humiliate you by pointing out your flaws.  Instead of using you against yourself, Forty-year-old self, I will honor your experience and expertise.  I will appreciate your unique beauty and your strength.  You've come a long way--you've traveled far and wide to get to this place, and you are where you need to be.  You deserve a quiet, loving, accepting home.  Just as my family chose me and welcomed me with open arms, I welcome you into this new era--this new frame of mind.  Thank you, forty years for all you've been, for all you've taught.  What I've learned cannot be bought.  I move forward today as I never have before, into a new decade, into a place of wonder, hope, and pride.  As I lay my head on my pillow each night, it will be with great love for all that I am and all I've become.