Happy Birthday to Me...

I am 41 years old today.

For the last few years, many people have asked me when I'm going to start lying about my age. Last year it seemed a lot of my friends and family thought I would be celebrating my second "39th" birthday, and seemed surprised when I told them emphatically, "Oh no! I am turning 40! I've been telling Brian for ten years that I expect a blowout for my 40th and if I don't actually turn 40, how can I get a big party?"

This year again, several people have asked if I am going to fudge the truth of my years and again I feel as though I am some sort of maverick when I state that I am proud of my 41 years and feel no need to hide from the turning of the calendar pages.

My children can't believe that I'm as old as I am, but then none of them have even hit double digits yet, so they have a hard time trying to imagine what it must mean to be my age (and while I may not be afraid or ashamed of my age, at least the kids no longer ask if the dinosaurs were still walking the earth when I was a child).

My parents called this morning to wish me a happy birthday and even they seemed surprised when I told them that I did not feel 41.

"You don't?" my mother asked, almost incredulously, I thought.

"No," I replied, and then we went on with the rest of our conversation.

But after I had hung up the phone, I started wondering, what is 41 supposed to look and feel like? When I was a kid (and even into my early 20s), 41 seemed as ancient as the hills in the valley I grew up in. By 41, humans were starting to fall apart. Grunting to sit down or get up out of a chair, needing glasses to read the paper, grey hair, wrinkles, sensible shoes and old lady hair styles...this is what I thought being past the age of 40 was supposed to look like.

Thankfully, other than needing glasses (and I'll blame genetics, not age for that one), none of those things have come to pass. I don't feel old, and I suppose that goes a long way toward helping me feel like I'm just getting started on this crazy journey we call life. Quite often I get comments like, "Wow! You don't look like you're that old!"...and while the comments are nice, it proves to me that none of us really knows what this age is supposed to look like.

As far as my looks go, I can thank good genes for that one too...and for the fact that because I'm so pasty white (in fact, my husband has told me that he could read without a lamp if I was to sit next to him), I have usually tried to keep my face covered (when you can get a sun burn just by thinking about going outside, it's a good idea to not only wear the spf lotion, but a hat too)...and other than about a month or so in my youth, I am not a smoker...all of which, according to the experts, will help me retain my "youthful" appearance...

But see, the thing is this, and I don't think I'm alone when I say this...I would not go back to my 20's if someone offered me all the money in the world. I still have one or two of the old insecurities that pop out from time to time, but they show up less and less as time goes by. Overall though, I am much happier now than I was then. I am stronger, not because some bad things happened and I survived them, but because of those things, I thrived. I have learned that sometimes I do not have to convince someone else that my opinion is the right one (and trust me, that lesson was, and is, a really hard lesson to learn). I have learned that I am beautiful, not because my husband or children or my family and friends tell me so, but because I can look in the mirror and see my beauty and accept it for myself. And I have learned that what the world tells me I should do and be and think is not nearly as important as what I hold to be true.

And that is a birthday gift worth unwrapping...