Are You Old?

So, yesterday, my husband e-mails me and informs me (with much glee in his typing – I could tell) that I will be 40 in exactly one month. The glee comes from his having turned 40 almost a month ago, you understand.

I have never cared much about my birthdays in the past. Other than the normal expecting-the-entire-world-to-celebrate-national-holiday-style-everything’s-about-me type of thing, I mean. But I never did care that I was getting “older”. My first child came a month after I turned 30 so that was exciting and I didn’t even *think* about the big 3-0.

And now I’m faced with 40. Is this the halfway mark? A friend recently told me he was growing a new beard for his 3/4 life crisis. I guess we all face age differently. Does this mean I am officially a “grown up”? When is it that you attain adulthood? When you live on your own? When you take responsibility for yourself? When you take responsibility for your children? When you take responsibility for your own parents?

Perhaps tearing out your kitchen and rebuilding it with your own hands is some rite of passage into the second half of life...

There are days when I just can’t believe that 40 years have passed. What have I done with all this time? Have I done enough? Have I done the right things? Are the wrong things going to haunt me?

Do I feel old? Some of you reading this will laugh at me because you have been here, on the cusp of 40. Just like I chuckle (well, bitterly complain, really) at people who are shocked that they are turning 20. But I’ve always been the baby of the family, and now I’m no longer a baby... I can’t even pretend. And my daughter has taken my place (happily, I might add).

So, yes, in some ways I feel old, literally like I have rounded the top of a hill (go ahead and make the jokes, black balloons and all) and behind me is my childhood, my youth, my foolishness, the ideas I thought would be the answers to everything. My old dreams that look foreign to me now. But ahead of me, I do not see the expected decline and diminishment. There in front of me I see the path, the continuation of the winding, surprising path on which the Lord has always been leading me. It’s familiar now and I expect the unexpected. Perhaps the pain and fear of my 31st year has taught me to not be afraid of what lies ahead. The Lord remains faithful and I feel more useful to Him now than I ever have. What I understand now that I did not understand at 30 is that there is still more of my foolishness ahead, the dreams I have today may change and change again and most importantly, that there is still time, as I allow Him, for God to mold me into who He intends me to be.