42

I’m turning 42 this week. Don’t understand how this has happened, as I’m sure I graduated from college a couple of years ago. I’m sure I just got married, and surely P1 was just born a few months ago.

Yet, here it is my birthday, and more than ever before, I am feeling and seeing the effects of the aging process. DH & I had our picture made a month ago, and I was shocked to see the middle aged couple looking back at me in the picture. Good grief, my hip is actually hurting this week. Did it just feel the need to remind me I’m getting old? No need, the 10 year old reminds me on a weekly basis.

Other evidence of my age – the reading glasses that are necessary to read anything actually printed on paper (one of the reasons I prefer reading on my phone, iPad or Kindle); the fact that I prefer wearing shoes to going barefoot; the gray streak that would be visible in my hair if I didn’t pay a lovely young woman to color it on a much more regular basis.

There is also the assortment of goo necessary to keep my skin from falling to the ground or wrinkling into deep crevices. Seriously, there is the morning face lotion, the evening face lotion, the eye cream, the hand cream, the foot lotion, the cream that fades the stretch marks and age spots, the cream that lessens the appearance of cellulite (I’m not sure that one works, but I’m afraid to stop using it in case it does), and the general body lotion. Oh, and sunscreen, of course there’s sunscreen.

But then, there is the good stuff about getting old. I feel generally more grounded, more at peace than any other time in my adult life. I love my husband more, so much more than I did 20 years ago when I married him. We have grown closer in the last couple of years that I could have dreamed possible.

I have a greater understanding of God’s grace. Better said, I have an understanding of God’s grace. I’m sure I didn’t get it at all as a younger person.

I have three kids that all came in the last decade. At 30, I had no idea if we would ever have kids. At 40, I sat in amazement at how God had grown our family. I have the calm and flexibility that only comes with mothering.

I have gained more friends – true, God-loving, all giving, amazing friends – than I could possibly deserve. I hope that I give back to each of them the blessings they give to me.

I am at a point in life where I can look back and smile, even laugh, and where I can look forward with confidence and joy. I have survived tragedy and triumph, mundane and extraordinary, the roller coaster of life. And I am standing strong. Strong in faith. Strong in love. Strong in life.

Blessed, I am so very, very blessed.