Time after Time: Birthday Musings

Approaching 39. In my last week of being 38, I feel pretty OK. You see, I've battled with getting older, with a cellar room full of grey hairs, with a body that refused to re-shrink after pregnancy, with becoming middle-aged and fantasizing about the Grim Reaper's appearance, etc. There's no easy answer to getting older. But, it happens, so we might as well embrace this phenomenon.

Finding purpose has come very easily to me this year. My son fills my life with helium, and I float above everything. And this is the kind of helium which doesn't escape the balloon, people. The balloon can't pop either, OK. Now, I am off on some 80's trip of memories. Excuse me.

As I was saying...I realize I still have one year of being in my thirties still. I am not 40 yet. The over the hill birthday slogans I will receive next year await me with awe, horror, and laughter. But, it's not time yet.

Abiding by this mantra, of sorts, has been a huge part of this past year. Meaning, living day by day, moment to moment comes more easily to me now that I've had to accept mommy brain, which comes with mommy emotions, mommy patience, and mommy irritability. All in matching colors.

Due to this package of changes since my son's birth 18 months ago, I have begun to mellow into this new status. I am different. Not just to me, but to those I love. It's been disconcerting, eyebrow raising, exciting, surprising, and lovely to myself and to many of my family and friends. The readiness to state the obvious. The lack of inhibition. The ability to assert my needs at a moments notice, and loudly if necessary, no matter who is in the room.

I can't attribute all of these changes to motherhood, however. I do think it is my age as well. I already feel like "I have earned it, damn it" or something like that. But, it's not even that. I've switched over, leveled up, grown some cojones (no idea this word was spelled this way), or whatever you want to call it. I've AGED. It may not be as graceful as aging wine or as sharp as aged cheese, but it's me.

Aging, for me, has meant loving the pounds, the lines, the hair, the centering I feel inside myself. I love the roots my soul has sprouted. The comfort in which I can write these words. In which I can love my husband.

"It's not time yet." We are almost sitting across the table from one another, you and I. The table may or may not be served. The wine may or may not be open. But,here we are.