Life At 40

Technically, I’m only 41 days into the age of 40, but this (at least from what I hear) is the year it all starts to fall downhill. I’ve also heard that the eyes are the first to go: that usually at this age, folks start to need to wear reading glasses or have some adjustment to their eyes. I hope and pray that mine don’t get any weaker. I’m already sight-challenged as it is; my range of clear vision extends just to my arm’s length. To need reading glasses would only be to add insult to injury and would in all honesty, probably qualify me for a Seeing Eye dog. Needing reading glasses would mean that I would have to get bifocals. And I don’t care how sophisticated they have made the lenses; the result is still the same: your eyes end up looking freakishly big.

40 is also the age where I need to watch my weight more carefully, and also decide to do something to get rid of the extra little person that I have gotten used to carrying for the past five years. I am not talking about my son (who is only 2), but about those extra pounds that I once heard were the equivalent of carrying another person. Right now my person is probably about the size of a gangly 12-year-old who’s going through growing pains. This is the heaviest I have been. Ever.

The weight factor is important because I have a family history of absolutely everything. Seriously, my ancestors on both sides gave me a load of things to worry about later on in life: diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, mental disorders, stroke, aneurisms, muscular dystrophy, and possibly some other life-threatening problem that just hadn’t been diagnosed when my ancestors died from it. And most of these factors are directly correlated to how much weight is packed on.

So it’s time to get serious about undoing all the damage I’ve done over the dinner table. It’s a whole lot easier to add than it is to subtract. Five years ago, I’d developed all these great fastidious habits that aided me in my weight lose journey, and I’d made such great progress. But five years is a long time, and it’s going to be an even longer road to get back to many of those positive habits. The only I can say that I have cultivated well is my commitment to drinking lots and lots and LOTS of water, as I talked about in my “Waterlogged” blog earlier this year. So now I guess it’s time to concentrate on formulating the next good habit.

Celebrating the 40 Milestone

I’ve come to the realization that I may be having a hard time with 40. As proof of this hard time, let me just say, I originally started this blog on 9/11. Then I retooled it again two weeks ago with a few updates, but still didn’t get it finished. Since three is supposedly an inherently lucky number, I’m trying again, and maybe this time, it will get posted before the end of the day. Last month, I embarked upon a major milestone--the marking of another decade. I turned 40 years old.

Initially, I was leading up to my own massive celebration that was to start 40 days prior to the big day. The idea was to give myself a series of small gifts, not only material things, but time well spent with others, before the big day hit. However, the death of my grandmother, who lived to see the grand age of 100, obliterated the celebration. She will be another blog altogether, just because she deserves that kind of tribute.

But because of her death, my celebration was toned down to just a couple of smaller events.

On the 5th of September, the hubby and I went on a karaoke cruise. Interestingly enough, I had purchased the tickets to this cruise at the beginning of August, and then totally forgot about them until 3pm that afternoon. After a mad scramble, Shanda babysat Ayden and we were off. And we had a great time; I even ran into one of my colleagues who was also celebrating early.

The next week, I stayed with my usual tradition. No birthday celebration would be complete without mentioning the Musketeers and the little brother. This year, I had to celebrate with them in turn instead of together. They were both at Jaspers, but one was on 40-Eve, with my DBBF and the other was a week later. We will rectify that next week for the next birthday.

On the actual day, I took off work. My hubby and son surprised me in the morning with roses. It was so cute when Ayden walked down the hall with a dozen white roses in his hand and said, “Here mommy!” After they left, I crawled back into the bed, woke up late, and got dressed to go meet the DBBF for round 2. The plan was to get up, and recreate the new habit of working out at the gym, possibly throw in a pedicure, spend a little time with my daddy, then have lunch with the DBBF, but that agenda changed. We ended up having a 4-hour lunch which consisted mainly of Milagro margaritas (note to self: find Milagro tequila) and appetizers. Then that evening, my hubby and I attended the open house at my son’s new daycare center. After that, my hubby and I came home, where there was a cake waiting for me. (I have no idea how these items remained in my home without my knowledge.)

Friday, I took off again. My mother-in-law dropped off a cake from my brother-in-law before I left the house. I finally managed to go the salon and get my toes done, where I read my Kindle and had a glass of wine there. Then in the evening, I enjoyed a nice quiet spaghetti dinner with my hubby and son with chocolate cake for dessert.

Saturday, I held class then went to a free makeover with Shanda and Michelle in Waldorf. After that, we went to the Applebees down the street and threw back a few. And as a cap to the evening, we went to a fight party, where my husband managed to produce yet another cake. I tried to leave most of it at the host’s home, but they have been so healthy that no one eats it, so we had a portion of another cake to bring home.

Overall, even though the birthday had to be toned down, I had a good time. Welcome to 40.

The Warm-Up

On her second album, Beautifully Human: Words and Sounds, Volume 2, Jill Scott has an introductory track called “Warm Up,” which is just a layering of sounds that a vocalist might use to limber up his or her vocal cords. It’s only a little over a minute long, and serves an introduction to the whole album. In a way, I guess this what this piece serves as because it’s my way of getting ready for the challenge that lies ahead. Next month, I’m starting the National Novel Writing Month (called “NaNoWriMo” for short) Challenge. The challenge is simple: construct a novel by submitting word counts every day for the month of November, culminating in at least 50,000 words by the end of the month. As such, I figured that I needed as much encouragement as I could get. So I invited a few more friends to my writing Facebook page to help in the encouragement.

There are those who’ve read my writing before and who have been hounding me to finish one book—just one. And I have to thank these people for their undying patience and faith in my ability to do so. And those of you reading this for the first time may be asking the same question I’ve received from those supporters: “What’s taking you so long?”

My first and most substantial answer (to everything really) is that life gets in the way. When I’m not writing it, I’m living it. I get caught up in the absolute busyness of life. And that makes the way I want to express the story change. In the past few years, some of my largest challenges were completing my Master’s degree, where I HAD to write daily on topics that were not my choice; marrying, moving, and having a kid, all within a two-year span; and teaching, where I get the opportunity to help others hone their craft. Most recently, the part of life that deals with loss has affected me profoundly, to where I’m just bouncing back out of the thick haze of grief. Somewhere in all that, the writer in me got lost.

The other substantial reason is fear mixed with a heavy dose of insecurity. Writing, while wonderfully cathartic most of the time, is also the process of baring one’s soul—turning a body inside out and exposing sinew and self to the world. Even though I write relatable characters based on people I’ve encountered—to the point where some of my friends see themselves as my characters—deep down, all those characters I create are facets of me: my thoughts, my aspirations, my anxieties.

On one level, I’m already feeling self-conscious. Compound that with the niggling thought that I’ve always had about my writing. There are millions of writers out there, those who are alive, and those who have left a living legacy. Who am I to add my voice to the symphony? It’s really only been in recent years that I’ve broadened my audience to beyond that of my best friend and allowed a couple more people to read my writing, even though technically anyone out there can read my blog. I feel grateful that when I do get the courage to expand my audience (usually at the pace of about one person per year), they display positive reactions to my writing, usually with the request for more. And this helps to validate my confidence a little. Ironically, as I was composing this piece, an Op-Ed piece from The New York Times popped up on the Facebook newsfeed called “The Op-Ed and You.” The line that attracted me to it provided the answer to the question I posed above: “there’s never too much good writing in the world.” To add to the answer, I saw another newsfeed from Good Morning America about The Waltons 30-year reunion, which just happened to be an inspiration for one of my favorite pieces I wrote as a freshman in college.

That’s why I write, and that’s why I teach writing. I believe in the power of words, and how they can transform an ordinary event into a powerful experience.

I hope you’ll continue to follow me as I venture out and take that leap of faith that will make me finish.