Forty-six

I turned 46 over the weekend. I remember when 46 was old, impossibly far away in a future I couldn’t yet see clearly. And now here I am. Forty-six… and still, somehow, me.

I feel different physically, of course. Your forties usher in a host of signs of slow decline. I knit (and read all labels) with my glasses off now, for instance. I embroider wearing a pair of magnifiers I picked up for $3 at WalMart. They are bright purple and unattractive, but they do the job, and they’re keeping me out of bi-focals for another year. I have to go easy on the curries these days, too, unless I want to be hitting an antacid before bedtime. That wasn’t always the case. And there’s grey hair, of course. A most generous sprinkling of grey hair that threads through every curl on my head at this point, I think.

Despite this, I have enjoyed my forties thus far. I started joking a couple of years back that I had lost a good bit of my filter, and that’s true. More than that, though, is the fact that I feel like I can now much more readily size up the hills of every day living and assess without emotion or angst whether they are ones I’m willing to die on. It’s the lack of  “emotion or angst” that has been so freeing. Things that used to get under my skin just don’t somehow. I realized the other day, when confronted with someone making a casual, repeated request that I had denied emphatically for months now that my reaction was to shrug, state my stance again, and move on. I wasn’t irritated that I hadn’t been heard. I didn’t feel that I was subtly being told my opinion didn’t matter. I wasn’t angry that I was being pressured. I just said my version of “no,” and waved away the inquiry. It felt good.

I am more patient. I am less likely to jump to fear as a reaction. I am far more cynical, but far more hopeful as well. I expect very little of my fellow man. I am more appreciative of considerations from others when they come.

My faith, too, has felt more like the coffee cup I reach for every morning and not the sweater I go looking for when I start to feel a chill. Praying without ceasing is a natural reaction, no longer a habit I need to cultivate, as I work and play alongside my husband and children. Gone are the days of “good Christian women always have 30 minutes of morning time with God,” pressure, or the rumblings in my heart that maybe I really do need to join a Women’s Bible Study. (You know, just to be sure I’m doing it right.) When I sing, “No power of hell, no scheme of man/ Could ever pluck me from his hand,” I know it, deep down in the places I once wasn’t sure were fully lit, let alone safe from fear. My heart has peace in the fact that I am imperfect, but accepted, and my meager attempts to know Jesus more and to pursue His calling are a fragrant offering, though flawed.

If my 20s were about learning and growing, and my 30s were about feeling comfortable in my own skin, my 40s have been about fully inhabiting that skin, and rejoicing in the quirky, unique person God created me to be. I am dreadfully unlike even my closest friends, and I am finally fully ok being the odd one out. I don’t enjoy group board games or puzzles, I hate crowds, and I disdain television in general. I love that the world of shopping has transitioned to be almost totally online, because it eliminates one of my least favorite aspects of modern life. I deeply enjoy time-consuming tasks that I could easily outsource or stop doing altogether: making bread, mending socks, washing and folding cloth napkins or, even better, cotton diapers. I cannot manage to look “cute” even when I try my hardest, because the truth is I default to the comfort of the same outfit (black top, denim bottom) in variation every day of my life. I love cooking, and only rarely feel the “I have to feed them again?” exhaustion so many women report daily.  If given my choice, I will stay home with my husband in lieu of an evening out with friends 9 times out of 10. For years, I was sure there was something inherently wrong with me. Now, in my 40s, I realize that this is just who I am, and I embrace it without apology.

Right now, 46 feels decidedly nonsynchronous; both “older mom” and “new mom” as I stand with one foot over the finish line of active parenting and the other counting down the weeks until the arrival of a new blessing. I want to say that’s unusual, and while my situation is— apparently there are only 0.5 births per 1,000 women ages 45 to 49 each year— I don’t think my mental status runs that far afield of most women my age. Life has moved on. Our bodies are changing. Our family dynamics have shifted. But we still wake up every morning in the same brain space we’ve occupied since we were college kids, or newly married, or new moms. We have been shaped by our lives and experiences, and our physical forms show the mileage, but some part of us still identifies more with Ferris than Mr. Rooney in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.

I suspect that the year ahead will be in turns joyful and hard and stretching and fulfilling and unexpected but also familiar. Whatever comes, I trust that my sense of grounding is firm, my relationships are secure, and with the Lord’s help, I can weather whatever challenges are in store. Knowing that, I think, is one of the best parts of being in my 40s. I hope you feel it, too— either now, or in the future!