Aging Gracefully

I can remember being twelve years old and dreaming of the day I would turn sixteen because that is the age when most girls are allowed to start dating. At sixteen it seemed that eighteen was the magic number because that means you are legally an adult and you can move out and go to college and be all grownup and cool. Then it was twenty-one because finally you have reached the legal drinking age and everyone knows at twenty-one you celebrate with friends by partying into oblivion. After that you don't hear women dreaming of being 30 or older -unless they are set to recieve a bajillion dollar trust. When my mother hit the big five-oh (50) she cried all day long. No one could console her. Nothing made her feel better. I found this to be the most ridiculous and immature behavior I have ever witnessed. Why in the hell was she upset about being 50? One of my aunts behaved similarly when she turned forty. I did not understand it then and I do not understand it now. Later my mother said turning fifty was this milestone that marked being old. I asked her who told her at the age of fifty a woman suddenly became old? Fifty is the new thirty. Fifty is the beginning of middle age. Fifty isn't old. In a year and a half my mother will be sixty years old. Only the Lord in heaven knows how she will react. If it is marked with another decade crying fit let's just say I am glad to be six hundred miles away from her. Yesterday Colby says to me, "Tomorrow is your birthday. Knowing that you are going to be thirty-nine don't you feel old?" I am like my grandmother I will never be old. When I am seventy-eight I still will not be old. Old is a state mind not a magic number marking time. Do I want to be twenty again? Hell, no. Passing through twenty once was enough. I don't ever want to be that dumb again. Do I want to be thirty again? Sweet Jesus, no. It was when I was thirty that the scales fell from my eyes. That was a tough year building up to a divorce and starting out on my own again but this time with two kids and not much of anything else. Today I am 39. I am better now than I have ever been in my entire life. In the past thirty-nine years I have: - Survived many forms of childhood abuse. - Been on my own since the age of 17. - Paid my own way in this life. - Given birth at age 20. - Survived a 14 year marriage. - Been a surrogate mother carrying 5 embryos resulting in one birth. - Been a surrogate carrying 7 embryos and miscarrying triplets. - Given birth at age 31. - Survived the dissolving of the 14 year marriage. - Lost 70 pounds but gained it back. - Been to Mexico. - Spent the better part of a month in Europe. - Discovered who I am and who I want to be. - Begun to see grey hair. - Married for the second time in my life. - Become 'with child' for the final time in my life. - Moved 600 miles away from every thing and every person I have ever known without ever second guessing the reason why. - I have loved. - I have been loved. - Done things I am proud of - Equally done things I am ashamed of. - No regrets about the past. I think most people ask the question of doing things over or doing things differently. I have heard a majority say they would change things in their past or would have followed a different path in life. I wouldn't change a thing. Everything has worked to make me who I am. I LIKE who I am. I LOVE me. Changing one thing in the past would make me someone else. The road to thirty-nine has been long. For a while every step a struggle uphill to reach a summit then getting to coast downhill only to trudge right back up the next mountain top. Right now I am not sure if I am climbing or coasting. Most days it feels like I am coasting then something changes and I feel like I am climbing. This pregnancy is a climb. Someone needs to to tell us older women how hard it can be physically to be pregnant at thirty-nine. Sure lots of celebrities are having children at this age but those are the women who have servants and attendants and lots of money to make the journey more tolerable. My marriage is a combination of coasting and climbing. Steven lets me coast a bit while he climbs for us and then it is my turn. Sometimes we both have to climb. Sometimes we both get to coast. It is a wild ride. I don't want it to ever stop. Many of my personal relationships are a climb. Over the past year and a half I have stopped trying to reach a summit and have quit. No more. The end. Life is too short to have to work that hard to make other people happy. I learned along time ago that having to kiss ass to please people wasn't something I could do. I did it for a while to appease the powers that be but no more of that. I don't like the taste of shit. I have bid farewell to those people who think their shit doesn't stink and they are better than and look down their nose at most of the people around them. This applies to some family members as well. Getting Colby to this point in life has been a climb. Now I have to force myself to sit back and let her climb on her own. I am still holding the safety net but I know she has to climb this next part on her own. I did all the climbing in the past alone and without a safety net. For the first time in my life I know that when I am climbing that if I should fall Steven has the safety net and will catch me. Today I am standing on the summit of 39. Looking behind me even the hardest most despairing moments don't look nearly as big as they appeared at the time. Perhaps in being overwelmed I made mountains out of molehills. Looking in front of me I see a bright future full of dreams. The road paved with peaks and valleys. Those high and low places are going to keep making me better every day. I am not afraid of them. I have been through the fire before and came out whole. My future holds the birth of a baby, a daughter who will set out on her own before I am ready, another who will reach teen status. Up the road is a husband's dreams of grandchildren and retirement and a sports car for grandma. I am standing at the summit of thirty-nine. I have on a full body harness and am strapped in. I have no idea where the road leads. I can't even guess where it stops. I do know one thing. Life isn't about a destination. Life is a journey. I don't know where I am going but I am trying to enjoy the ride. To all of you thirty-somethings out there. Stop fretting about aging. It gets better every year. Don't fight it. Go with it. Aging gracefully is an art. Pick your media. Choose your pallette. I am opening a gallery and putting on a one woman show.