| The life-altering event I had been dreading | | | | yet another gray hair poking through the |
| finally occurred. I went to bed one night | | | | brunette strands. I mentally make a note to |
| able to say I was thirty something and woke | | | | the long list of to do's for the day to call |
| up with the realization I was forty | | | | the salon. |
| something. Somehow, I had thought I would be | | | | |
| able to escape the inevitable, that somehow | | | | When the kids returned home, throwing their |
| the rules of nature would not apply to me. I | | | | bags on the table, papers inevitably splay |
| made the conscious decision that regardless | | | | everywhere. Going through them there was an |
| of what any calendar might say, a single date | | | | essay from my middle child's English class. |
| would have no profound impact upon my mental | | | | Something caught my eye, so I sat down with a |
| state. Scores of people had reassured me | | | | cup of coffee to read, "The greatest teacher |
| that nothing truly earth shattering would | | | | in my life is my mom." Setting my coffee |
| happen the day I reached the age of forty. | | | | aside, knowing this will be a revelation, I |
| They could not have been more wrong. | | | | assure myself that the wonderful child of |
| Actually, the ground trembled and the skies | | | | mine will say how I have taught her proper |
| opened up. | | | | manners and to pick up her dirty laundry. |
| | | | |
| By the way, these scores of people were all | | | | To my astonishment, she wrote of a person I |
| forty and reassured me that forty is merely | | | | did not know myself, of a woman who had |
| the beginning of life. Age is a state of | | | | taught her that home is a place in the heart, |
| mind. A time for introspection and | | | | and no matter the scarifies any one makes if |
| re-evaluation of life. A time to | | | | one has the love of family, they can overcome |
| re-prioritize what is truly important. All I | | | | anything and be happy in spite of the |
| can say to that is, bull crap, when I rose | | | | sacrifice. She wrote of a woman who gave of |
| this morning, my bones ached and creaked. I | | | | herself more than anyone else she ever known, |
| took the handful of multi-source vitamins | | | | who taught her what love, compassion, |
| that are a special formula for women of | | | | understanding and hope were. |
| middle age. I mixed my Mega Green so things | | | | |
| will continue to flow properly. | | | | I turned the paper over a few times wondering |
| | | | if I was reading another child's essay rather |
| Re-prioritize? Now when am I supposed to do | | | | than my own child's. I realized that the |
| that? After I pick up a child from drama | | | | person I saw in the mirror was vastly |
| club, drop one off at baton practice, swing | | | | different from the one my children saw. In |
| through the pizza joint for supper, rush | | | | that one moment, every priority and every |
| across town to pick up another child, drop | | | | petty worry over my wrinkle lines and gray |
| them off at the soccer field, taxi back to | | | | hairs shifted. |
| baton, back to soccer, then off to boy | | | | |
| scouts? On the other hand, is it when I get | | | | I looked out the window realizing I would not |
| home and have to placate the husband who now | | | | wish to be any other age than I was at this |
| feels abandoned, run the dishwasher, throw in | | | | very moment. I would take every gray hair, |
| a load of laundry, and make lunches for | | | | every wrinkle line formed from laughter, and |
| tomorrow, feed the dogs, pick up the bathroom | | | | every creaky bone given from chasing them, |
| from the toothpaste fight and walk the dogs? | | | | over being twenty again. Wiping a tear from |
| Too tired to re-evaluate anything now, | | | | my eye, I went outside and piled everyone, |
| perhaps it will be next Tuesday after the PTA | | | | including the two dogs, into the middle-aged |
| meeting, while I bake cookies for the bake | | | | soccer mom's minivan and headed off to the |
| sale at school the following day. Then it | | | | soccer fields. |
| might be quiet enough to re-evaluate. | | | | |
| | | | The ground did tremble; the skies did open |
| I am tired before I even make it to the | | | | up, just in an unexpected way. The old adage |
| bathroom mirror, just thinking about thinking | | | | that, "when everything else physical and |
| about re-evaluating life. The youthful glow | | | | mental seem to diminish, the appreciation of |
| that used to be there stares back as wrinkle | | | | beauty is on the increase," took on a whole |
| lines and creases. I need my bifocals to put | | | | new meaning. I had thought that beauty was |
| the contacts in to see what I used to call | | | | to be found in the mirror. Now I realize it |
| the sparkling eyes full of life. What in my | | | | looks up at me every night when I tuck the |
| twenties was a size two body now sags and | | | | beauties of my life into bed. Being forty is |
| bulges from three children and twenty more | | | | not so bad today. However, do not ask me |
| years of life. And there, to my horror, is | | | | about fifty. |