Happy 4-0 to me!

Today is my 40th birthday. Wow, it’s hard to believe because it seems like I just turned 30 yesterday. So much has happened in the past ten years, well really the past 40 years – my life up to now. I am grateful, honored and privileged to be able to celebrate my 40th birthday. Sure I’ll take some teasing today, and a few people will call me an old lady, but its all in good fun. My husband likes to rub it in that he is younger than me, but I think he’s damn lucky to have a hot looking 40 year old for a wife! Ha ha.

I have really grown up in the past 10 years, it’s unbelievable when I think back. At age 30 I was very accomplished in my career, had traveled the world, had a ton of friends, but I was very emotionally immature and high strung. I struggled with self-esteem, I was still working through some childhood issues, I worried about what other people thought, I was very unlucky in love and doubted that I would ever get married. Little did I know that I would go through 3 very serious relationships in my 30s before meeting Tony, two of which broke my heart more than I thought was possible. However it was all in “the plan” and I’m so glad I waited to meet Mr. Right, my darling Tony. Even with all of his quirks, I love him and he loves me. I honestly don’t know if we would have gotten married if we had met when I was 30 rather than 36. I grew leaps and bounds in those 6 years. When Tony met me I was finally a confident, content, calm, centered woman. Granted I still have my moments, but overall I like who I am. At age 30 I didn’t really like myself and I think Tony would have picked up on that and walked the other way. When I met him, I wasn’t looking for anyone, I was perfectly happy on my own and enjoyed my life to the fullest. Fate had it that we met when we did.

I remember when I was 34 and had just had my heart broken from a relationship, I thought to myself “I don’t want to be 38 when I get married, and I don’t want to have a baby when I’m 40 – that’s too old!!!”. Well I did get married at age 38 and now at age 40, I do want a baby, not matter my age. I don’t care anymore that I’ll be so “old”.

I am grateful for my health having lost so many friends long before they reached 40. I know that my dear Patty is celebrating my big day up in heaven. I was 32 when Patty died, that was a large part of the growth I experienced in my 30s – sharing her journey as she became sick and sicker and eventually left this earth, and then going through the grief process. It hurt like hell, but it taught me a lot and for that I am eternally grateful. My mom lost her younger sister at age 40, so I know me reaching that age has special meaning to my mom as well.

So I celebrate today being grateful for the life I’ve lived. I will not spend today regretting that I am not yet a mother because as my life has taught me over and over again – life is a journey that we cannot plan or control, we can only control how we react to what life brings us. Life is meant to be lived and loved and to love others, so BRING ON THE 40s!!!