Putting it to Bed

I'm going to be forty on my next birthday.

FORTY. Four oh. 

That's like, a grownup and stuff.

It's funny because I often don't feel like an "adult", whatever that even means. I feel the same way I've always felt: frequently puzzled, and in the ongoing process of trying to learn how to best be who I am. Adults, in my head anyway, understand things that I just don't, like valid reasons to buy a new car and how to save for retirement and career planning. Adults have it all together.

I kind of bumble through life.

And to be honest? I rather enjoy the bumbling. Oh sure, it has brought me the occasional bout of abject misery, but it has also caused me to find real joy. So, whatever. I'm a bumbler.

Not a grown-up.

But you know, FORTY. That's a grown-up age. I can't deny it. It's a serious, solid, oh man I'm actually NOT getting younger, you're halfway there kind of age.

Huh.

I'm a little obsessed with it. Not in an "I'm so depressed" way, but in a "oh wow, how did I GET here" way. I never thought I'd get here. To be completely honest, I never thought I'd live to thirty-five. There was no real reasoning behind that, mind you, I was just always convinced that I wouldn't live to see thirty. 

But I did.

And here I am.

So. Obsessed.

Primarily, I am taken with the notion that this year-- the year up to The Milestone Birthday -- is a chance for a change. A really cool chance to do make some good changes. The opportunity to put some habits behind me once and for all. 

I'm happy, you see. I've got the Fellas and a place I love living and great friends and all kinds of awesomeness going on. I want to take all of those into forty with me. I also want to leave doubt and insecurity and weariness behind. Those can stay in the first half of my life. They don't have to come with into the second part. They don't add anything, and I'm so bored with them. 

There's no reason I can think of to carry the same crappy baggage into the second half of my life. I want to put it down, one piece at a time. That's my plan for this year-- to trade in my baggage. To finally break these bad habits. To allow the next forty years to be more joyful and less fraught.

Maybe I am an adult after all.