Like Fine Wine

It feels like it has all been leading up to this moment. My life I mean. Traveling all the way up that proverbial hill and teetering right there at the top. Ready to start slow on the way down and pick up speed finally crashing into a pile of wrinkles and gray hair.

Giggle.

I have to laugh at that analogy of being over the hill at 40. The trite crap you read on birthday cards. Real life tells a different story.

Saying goodbye to my 30's is surprisingly easy. I feel stronger now then then. I feel like the first 40 years were like studying for the test and the next 40 will be taking it. It is like I have put all the outside edge pieces of my puzzle together and now I am ready to start on the more complex, meatier inside pieces. That can be really hard when you don't have that all important picture on the box top to peek at. But maybe such a defined picture wouldn't really help me since I am making it up as I go along. Maybe some of those pieces have pictures of me doing a triathlon or a marathon. Maybe there are some of me in a bikini on a far away beach or sitting in a college classroom. The possibilities are endless really.

So on Tuesday when it is official don't feel any sympathy. No walkers or putrid black icing for this girl. Fine chocolate and expensive red wine, please. Let's celebrate! Besides isn't it success when you reach an important birthday and you find that you are exactly the same as you were the day before?