life-altering event I was dreading finally happened. I went to bed one night unable to say that I was a thirty-something awakened to the realization I was forty something. Somehow I thought I would be able to escape the inevitable, that somehow the rules of nature would not apply to me. I made a conscious decision that regardless of any calendar might say, one day it will have a profound impact on my mental state. The results people have assured me that nothing really earth shattering happens the day I turned forty years. They could not be more wrong. In fact, the ground shook and the heavens opened.
By the way, these results were forty people of all assured me that forty is just the beginning of life. Age is a state of mind. time for introspection and re-evaluation of life. time for re-prioritization of what is truly important. All I can say to that is bull shit, when I rose this morning, my bones ached and creaked. I took a handful of different sources of vitamins, which are special formula for the middle-aged women. I mixed my Mega Green so things will continue to run properly.
Re-championship? Now that I am supposed to do? After I pick up the child from the drama club, a drop off at the direction of practice, swing by the pizza joint for dinner, going across town to pick up another child, take them on the football field, a taxi back to the bat, back to football, then off to Scouts? On the other hand, that's when I get home and I have to reassure her husband that now feels abandoned, run the dishwasher, throw in a load of laundry and make lunch for tomorrow, feeding the dogs, pick up the bathroom with toothpaste to fight and walk dogs? Too tired to re-evaluate it now, maybe it will be next Tuesday, after a PTA meeting, when I bake cookies for a bake sale at school the next day. Then it could be quiet enough to re-evaluate.
I'm tired before I even make it to the bathroom mirror, just thinking about thinking about re-evaluating life. youthful glow that used to be there staring back as wrinkle lines and creases. I need to put my bifocals contacts to see what I called sparkling eyes full of life. What in my twenties was the size of the two bodies now sags and bulges of three children and more than twenty years. And there, to my dismay, there was a gray hair poking through the brunette strands. I mentally note that a long list of to do is call the salon for the day.
When the children returned home, throwing his bag on the table, papers spread all over the inevitable. Going through them is an essay from my middle child's English class. Something caught my eye, so I sat down with a cup of coffee to read the "greatest teacher in my life is my mother." Setting aside my coffee, knowing it would be a discovery, I assure you it is wonderful to my child will tell you how I taught her the proper way to pick up her dirty laundry.
To my amazement, it was written by people I did not know a woman who has learned that the house is a place in my heart, and regardless of who makes scarifies if you love family, they can overcome anything and be happy regardless of the victims. She writes about a woman who gave of themselves more than anyone else has ever known, who had learned what love, compassion, understanding and hope.
I turned the paper a few times wondering if I was reading the other child, an essay, but your child. I realized that the man I saw in the mirror was significantly different from those of my children saw. In that one moment, every priority and every small to worry over my lines wrinkles and gray hairs move.
I looked through the window realizing I would not want to be any other age than I was at this very moment. I would have any gray hair, every wrinkle lines formed with laughter, and every creaky bones given them by chasing, be more than twenty again. Deleting a tear from my eye, I went all out and complex, including two dogs, in a middle-aged soccer mom's minivan and headed off for football.
The ground is shaking, heaven is open only in an unexpected way. The old adage that "when all other physical and mental seems to diminish, appreciation of beauty is on the rise", is an entirely new meaning. I thought that beauty is in the mirror. Now I realize that watching me every night when I tuck the beauty of my life in bed. Be forty is not so bad today. However, do not ask me about fifty.
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