40

listening: city and color

today i turn 40.

in spite of the fact that i've been trying to prepare myself for this day for months, perhaps years, i don't belive i'm any more prepared to accept it today than i was any of the many yesterdays. it simply seems not possible.

but here it is nonetheless. and the reality is, if you look at my birth certificate, then it's true that i am closer to beginning retirement than i am the day i began high school. and the person who lives inside this four decade old body hardly seems a day over 21 most days...some days she even has the remarkable ability to revert back to an 8 year old, but we won't talk about that today. :-) 40 still seems foreign, not that it's bad, it's just an age, a season of life that belongs to someone else...perhaps someone with a bit more maturity...?

it has been a remarkable four decades, i must admit that, filled with so many truly spectacular memories and people and places...that if all i got was these 40 years, i couldn't begin to complain.

as humans, we have a tendancy to look for patterns where there could be none...and with that, i know where i stand today, the road behind me is more characterized by beginnings, and the road ahead will no doubt be marked with more endings.

but this one thing i know: that given all i've been given by God, and using history as a guide, i could never hope for an ordinary existence. so today, i will be 40. but i'll be 40 as only i am equipped to be, and i'll go to Paris in 18 days, and i will continue to laugh and grow and learn with the amazing people in my life, and i will continue to search out the beginnings and firsts that i can jump into wholeheartedly, and i will endeavor to embrace the endings that will surely come with all the grace i have within me, and some from beyond.

here we go...