Maybe it is silly, but I
keep waiting for one of my birthdays to bother me. Everyone told me that 30
would make me cry and that I would lock myself away for a week or two. So I made sure
that I was in CA for my thirtieth, surrounded by friends--nope, just another
day. I thought maybe 40 would bring tears--nope, nothing. Friends tell me their own horror stories and the trauma surrounding getting older; I still just shrug my shoulders, as the birthdays come and go, and I wait for my own turn at tears...
Aging doesn't bother me. Maybe along
with my biological clock, that is just one of my missing pieces. I
would say that perhaps there is a connection between my missing biological
clock and not caring about my age, except that the biggest tweakers
that I have seen regarding moodiness, getting older, and birthdays have
been men.
I dated the PFA-ex through his 37th through 39th birthdays. All I can say is when his fortieth hit in 2011, I was beyond grateful to have a PFA. He was a miserable bastard for the entire month of February and a good chunk of March, each year. And I say this with the knowledge that he wasn't overly pleasant at any time--but there was a definite added layer of evil for a good six weeks surrounding each of his birthdays, even in the beginning before I saw his other face. But he certainly isn't the only man that I have seen crumble and sink into a pit of despair with their birthdays--I have known many that simply can not cope with getting older. But that is neither here, nor there, in relation to today's post.
A few weeks ago, I turned 42.
42; the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and
everything. I believe that Douglas Adams may have been onto something here. Maybe it meant the simple balance of 42 years of life.
By 42, you have a clue. By 42, you finally have an idea where you are
going and which road will take you there. By 42, you know how things
work and you can make them work to your advantage. 42 is a blessing. 42 is good. The ultimate question of life, the universe, and
everything? Quite possibly.
Despite all of this, 42 is the birthday that I have been waiting for and well, yes, dreading. 42 is also how old my mom was when she died. I was worried
that turning 42, myself, would be difficult, so far *knock on wood*, it is
fine. Everything I have read told me that when we reach the age that our same-sex parent died, we are faced with our own mortality. Many studies suggest that folks go off the deep end, end up having a mid-life crisis or some such--maybe since I was prepared, I was able to dodge it? My mom was around two months shy of her 43rd birthday when she was murdered, so there is still the possibility that I will struggle in another ten months, but I don't think that I will.
I doubt that 45 will bring tears. It will mean that I beat the sudden, early deaths that took the last two generations of women on my mom's side. My maternal grandmother was 41--unknown if murder or suicide; my mother was 42--murdered; so if I make it to 44, I figure I will have beat it. But I guess potentially, this may mean that 43 will be my flake out year since that should be my year to go, if I allow myself to believe in such patterns. Again, I feel that awareness of what may potentially lurk in our subconscious, whether we believe in such notions or not, helps to battle those types of demons.
Maybe aging doesn't bother me because I have always gravitated toward folks older than myself; I have always adored the elderly and have never seen age as a definer of what makes a person awesome. Many of the folks that I loved most when I was little were senior citizens, so maybe it is just that acceptance that the most amazing people in life came with white hair, wrinkles and were over 70. Maybe it is because the folks that gave me hope and kept me going during my teen years were mostly folks decades older than me. I don't know. Maybe it is because I have always looked decades older than I really was and I am finally growing into my own face. Truly, I have no idea why acceptance is always waiting with each birthday.
It probably also has a bit to do with the fact that I intensely disliked life before the age of 28, which means I don't look back at youth with nostalgia. There were more than a few years in my mid-thirties that were awful--from 2009-2011 it was a bitter struggle to just keep going. Maybe aging doesn't feel as bad when the years prior were not "the glory days"? Each decade below 40 had pieces that I could not be paid to go back to. Birth to ten? Hated it. Ten to twenty? Wanted to die. Twenty to thirty? Some pretty awful stuff in there. Thirty to forty? Some of the worst years that I have experienced and well, quite frankly, this blog wouldn't exist without the events that occurred from the age of 35-37, so that says a bit about how much of a struggle those years were.
I guess I will just wait and see if there is a birthday down the road that makes me sad. I don't think there will be, but I could certainly be wrong. Honestly, I never thought that I would live to see 42, so I can't say how I will feel with any of them. So far, forty and beyond has been good. I know life ebbs and flows, but I have made life changes since those events in 2010 that have been very positive and also preventative in nature--namely, removing toxic people. I can't guarantee that my years from here on out will be all calm and stormless, but I know removing some of the common denominators will help.
Carl Jung said it best: "The afternoon of life is just as
full of meaning as the morning; only, its meaning and purpose are
different." and his better known: "Life really does begin at 40. Up
until then, you are just doing research." Age has always just been a
number to me and I have to agree with Carl and Douglas on this one.
