Halfway to 80

So here we are.  Can you believe it?  When I saw the birthday gadget at the bottom of the blog today I just sat here and stared at it.  Today is my birthday.  My 40th fucking birthday.

I woke up this morning in my parents' house in my childhood room (yes, I know how I got here).  It was nice to come downstairs and see them on this day of days.  We sat and talked for about an hour.  My dad made me oatmeal and my mom reflected on the pain I caused her lady parts on my way into the world.  I apologized to them (the lady parts).  We had some good laughs over our respective horoscopes.  Apparently my mom is going to have a "rustle in her hedgerow" this week, I think she's kind of excited.

This has been quite the year.  When I started this blog last fall I didn't really know where it would lead.  It has been quite a learning process.  The fact that many of you have been there since the beginning with me and have decided to keep coming back to listen to my nonsense is mind boggling, in a good way.  We are not alone in this world.

If you asked me today how it feels to be 40, I think my answer would be "surreal".  I don't feel 40.  Sitting here in the room I spent my childhood in I feel much like the same girl I did then.  The difference now is that I know myself so much better.  I think that is the gift of age, if you have the courage to be open to the knowledge.  We can learn.  We can change.  We can accomplish things that we never thought possible at any age.  Our language shapes our reality and when we change that script in our head some miraculous things can happen.

I think of all the things I've learned in my life and especially this past year, is that all that really counts is love.  Love of family, friends, life.  

I have lived a blessed life.  I am grateful for so many things and none of them are things.  Thank you for going on this journey with me.  Here's to the next 40.

I'm going to go drink tequila now.

Birfdays

Remember how I told you guys that I took an impromptu trip? It was for my bff's 40th birthday party! She's the one I wrote about licking slugs. Even though I'm going back to Oregon for a long visit in three days, I just couldn't miss her party. So glad I didn't. There is nothing like backyard dancing to the same Michael Jackson songs over and over at 2 a.m. with your best girlyfriends (and a couple brave guys). Life is just too short not to be there.

According to my birthday counter, I am now 63 days away from "the big day." Between my flying and money anxieties, I have almost talked myself out of doing anything. Almost. My mom was actually the one who pushed me over the edge of not letting that happen. She said something complex like "oh, c'mon you just have to do it." So I am. So there. I mean my mom told me to right?

Here's the plan for the FALL OF FORTY (notice the word play??):

September: Complete first triathlon without drowning.

October: Party in Oregon October 3rd. No details yet other than tequila, dancing and a surprise appearance by Justin Timberlake (still working on one of those). No children allowed.

November: Learn to surf in Barbados. No children allowed.

December: Buy my children a ridiculous amount of guilt-induced Christmas presents.

I'd love to add more self-indulgence to the list like a yoga retreat, bike tour, etc. but I'm afraid that my husband and children would be mommy-shopping on Craig's List at that point. Maybe for 41?

200 days

I've got 200 days left in my 30's.  Deep cleansing breath.  Let's talk a little about birthdays shall we?

I need to change my relationship with my birthdays.  I love people that love their birthdays.  I am not one of these people.  This started way, way back.  I think it has to do with expectations and pressure.  My parents always tried really hard (or at least they told me "we're trying really hard") to make my birthdays perfect.  Birthdays are never perfect.  Birthdays are when your best friend pukes tomato and cheese sandwiches all over you and the back of your mom's Volvo station wagon on the way to the roller rink.  Birthdays are when you cry inconsolably over the comment someone made about your dead dog.  Birthdays are when you get caught taking your boyfriend to your room and emerge with a patch of hickeys that would make a leech blush.

My husband and I also have a different "picture" of what a good birthday looks like.  His is intimate.  Maybe a golf outing with a few close friends.  A great dinner and a concert/play/show.  I enjoy these things as well, but not for my 40th birthday.  I pretty much want everyone I've ever met at my 40th birthday.  I want raucous partying.  I want tequila shots.  I want dancing.  I want roasting.  I want girl hugging and drunken expressions of love and affection.

I'm a big girl.  I know I've got to take this birthday bull by the horns and ride it.  I have 200 days.  So many options.  The problem is that my friends are spread out all over the country/world and I'm not expecting anyone to make a trip anywhere just for my birthday.  So I'm thinking the mountain needs to go to Mohammed.  A party here, a party there.  I'm also considering trips - I want to learn to surf so Costa Rica has been discussed.  I would also like to do something more reflective (after the partying of course) like a yoga retreat.  You only turn 40 once right?

If anyone out there has had the best birthday ever, let me know!  I'm open to suggestion and ideas.

An upside to turning 40

Bitchin' parties.  Axl's wife threw him a great surprise party last night.  She had taken him out to dinner with the kids and a bunch of us (including her sister from Chicago) went over and decorated while they were gone.  Their kids didn't know anything about it either because the cat would have been out of the bag in about a nanosecond.  

So we had all the food out on the table and we're in the kitchen waiting for them to come in.  They come through the door and their 1st grader says "it smells like guacamole."  Axl says "it does smell funny in here, not bad funny but different funny."  Apparently superior olfactory abilities run in this family because there was guacamole TWO ROOMS AWAY.

Anyhoo, he walks into the kitchen, we do the "SURPRISE" thing, which he clearly is, and then proceed to get stinking drunk in his honor.  You know you're at a good party when you walk into a conversation about people shitting themselves and it's as natural as talking about the weather.  That's a sign that plenty o'Petron has been had by all.

There are however two things I highly recommend not doing with a hangover.  Getting a bikini wax and taking a four year old to a party at the "Funplex".  I have now done both of these things.  Nerve endings are just way too sensitive.  I came within an inch of screaming "shut the fuck up" to a table of particularly ear-piercing six year olds behind me.

It's going to be a fun year.