Forty

Today I turn 40. I have truly reached middle aged. I no longer even qualify as thirty-something. Instead, I am the big 4-0. I do not mind. I have no problem with being the age I am. I love my life, and am very happy with where I am. At the same time, I honestly do not know how I got here. A lot of the time I feel like I should just be turning 30.

And yet, I look back at the last 10 years, since I did turn 30, and am amazed at all the changes. I have some amazing friends who I did not even know back then. We have lost friends and family members to death. We have added to our family. Life ebbs and flows.

At 30, I could not have imagined everything that was going to happen these last 10 years. The path I thought my life would take, even then, is so different from the road I did travel. I am blessed that C has remained at my side through these years, and has been the best traveling companion a person could ask for. My family continues to love and support me. Those things have not changed, will not change, but everything else?

In December of 2005, I was just starting to think about going back for my MBA. My plan was to start in 2007. Instead, I started in in 2006.  I got my degree. I spent 8 years with a single company before being laid off and making the move to the University. I now make double what I was making at the time.

At 30, I still thought C and I would have kids the “old fashioned” way. But that was still in the distant future. I was not ready for kids, and therefore was not thinking about it. But in 2011, when I was ready, I realized I wanted to adopt, and we were blessed with Pop Tart’s arrival in 2013.

At 30, I still felt at the very beginning of my life, my career. I was still, often, the youngest person in a meeting or on my team at work. Now, I am a manager. Most of my team is younger than me, and my peer group has a greater age variety, as well. I am thoroughly mic-career.

And while my child has only been in my life a couple of years, she is a pre-teen, going through all the pre-teen girl drama. She is two-thirds of the way to being a legal adult herself.

I am mid-life, mid-career, thoroughly middle aged. I am adult who likes being an adult, who is good at “adulting”. And yet, I still often wonder how I got here. I can count the years; I can trace the events. But I still feel young. I like popular music. I enjoy going to concerts. I was never a person to go out drinking and dancing, so the fact that I do not do that now does not mean anything. The big difference between now and 30 is that I can afford to do a lot of the things I want to do, things I could not afford back then.

So much of these 40 years seems to be defined by those I have lost over the years, but also those I have gotten to keep. FaceBook is amazing in that it lets me still be in contact with people I went to grade school with; to keep in regular contact with the friends of my high school and undergraduate years. But it also really highlights those who are no longer in my life- not just those who are no longer alive, but those who I have honestly lost touch with, and also those who have chosen to remove me from their lives.

It is those last losses I feel the most on days like this.  I wonder if it was something I did or did not do. I wonder if there is something I could do to make amends. And then I remember that if FaceBook did not exist, I would have completely lost touch with these people anyway, and so, if they have chosen to remove me, for their own reasons, then that is their choice.

I am 40. I am an adult. And yet, the actions of people I knew when I was 10 can still hurt me. The difference is that now, I have learned to let it go. I have learned that sometimes people do things that affect others that has nothing to do with those others. I have learned that the gains in friends often matter a lot more than the losses. I miss some people; I will not lie about that. But looking around at those who make the active choice to remain in my life, I realize that I am blessed.

So thank you to those reading this. Thank you to those who wished me a happy birthday today. Thank you for making the choice to be in my life, at least in some little way. Because I do recognize that it is a choice, and that it does take some level of effort. And I appreciate that effort.

The last 10 years have seen change, losses but more gains, pain but infinitely more love. I look forward to the next 10 years, and continuing to share this journey with you.