Forty-one

I turned 41 yesterday. Forty-one.

The peculiar thing about time, it turns out, is that we are often completely unaware of its tide as it washes over us. I feel roughly the same at 41 as I did at 27, although I bear very little resemblance to that version of myself physically, mentally, or spiritually. Yet I can’t deny that weeks and months and years are slipping through my fingers. That girl on the other side of the world who calls me Mum? She was 9 when I first heard her name. The Tom’s knock-offs I call “my new black ones”? Two years old. That winter it snowed so much our six foot fence was nearly swallowed in a drift? Nearly a decade ago.

It amuses me that our reaction to age, as women, is to deny its advance. We compliment each other by saying, “You don’t look old enough to have grandchildren!” and “You look exactly like you did in your wedding day!” And truly, these can be good things. A healthy body is most often a lean one, honed with use. A face that holds its youth has usually been denied the ravages of smoking, alcohol abuse, and other things that rip away not only the social definition of beauty, but the less visible aspects that contribute to our physical health.

But what about the belly made soft by the housing of growing bodies, or the mouth lined from frequent laughter? What about the wide lap that serves as my childrens’ favorite landing spot? Or the eyes beginning to strain from my habit of reading in low light? Life ages us, yes. Sometimes, joyfully so.

I’m not ashamed to be 41. Yes, I am vain enough to get a small thrill when a stranger seems shocked that I gave birth to my first biological child 18 years ago, or that I’m approaching my twentieth wedding anniversary.

But still… I am happy to be in my 40s. I will claim every year. I have done a lot of living in these days that make up the road. I have traveled, sometimes short distances, sometimes far. I have been anxious and found comfort. I have been excited and found release. I have been overcome with emotions good and bad. I have been carried by a Savior stronger than I ever imagined, and disappointed by men more selfish than I dreamed.

It is all, every bit of it, part of what God allowed when He numbered my days.

So far, He has set that number at nearly 15,000. I claim every one of them.