When I turned 40

I wrote this when I was turning 40.  I just found it the other day when I was looking for something.  I thought it appropriate for my journal.

As I approach a time in my life when there is a certainty of an end, I can't help but be in awe of my surroundings.  Thirty-nine is a cumulative age.  A bewilderment settles in.  What mattered last year, last month or even last week is of no importance.  Have I lost or gained patience?  Nor only do I ponder my life, but I also view other lives.  I cannot comprehend others complaints.  It is really tragic to view such trival aspects of life with panic.  Life is not as complicated as we would have it be.  We're born and we die.  What we do in between in our choice.  When we become anxious over traffic or the weather or some other occasion beyone our scope of control, we lose sight of love or the beauty of a cloud.  Death is tragic, but in death there is new life.  A life of memories and lessons which are always new and different for us all.  We remember and regret.  We take stock.

As disturbing as it is, is it really worth distress when a child scores a 42 (or as rewarding whan a child scores an 80) on his citywide test? Does it imporve the quality of our life?  Maybe yes but not for long.  Should we even assume that the child's quality of life will be better for that score.  I think not.  Do we chance making our children as neurotic and anxious as we have become?  Do we want that resondibility?  Will our children have the same complaints as we have?  Will they also be in therapy?  Happiness of being, love of life, contentment that suely improves life's quality.

Could it actually be nexessary to fight with the neighbors over stupid things?  Or with the people down the block, across the street or on the moon over the kids?  What do we gain? We lose do much more.  What's wrong with a smile, or a simple "hello", even when we have to do it first?  Is there a big score board toting the initiation of "hellos" or waves?  Me" 3 You: 2.  Who cares anyway?

Maybe, I think, I have lost a little patience, but I have also gained some somewhere along my journey.  I'm allowed.  I'm thirty-nine, a full fledged, card carrying, honest-to-God adult person now.  We'll see what forty brings.  Much better stuff, I think.

But right now and surely for forever, I love my husband and my children more than I could ever convey.  This I can be sure of.  Even though the love I have for Gary is not the same love of my past twenty-six year old self, it's pure and real.  I'm sure of him to always be there, to always be my care-giver, my lover and, most importantly, my friend.

Maybe an end of life is somewhere, but what fun and joy I'll have getting there.  I can look to now and know that my life's quality is as excellent as I make it.

Wow, I wrote that almost a decade ago.  Some of my thinking has changed.  I think I have matured even more than I thought I would from that time.  I'm sick now and I think somewhat differently now.  But not really that much differently.