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No, I am not talking about New Year’s 2020 just yet. I am talking about that certain time of year where we are all reminded of one thing we are not getting any younger.
Birthday celebrations as we grow older don’t resemble anything like when we were young. Days when we were all excited to add another year to our ticking numeric value in life and proudly proclaim that we were 16, 18, 21 and so forth are long gone, for some of us.
Those years, I would anxiously await my birthday as the year came to an end and try and plan what best way to celebrate “my special day,” worried that maybe I was forgetting something fun to do that would make it extra special.
Now, each year when my husband asks me what I want to do, I smile and say, “absolutely nothing.” And you know what, I absolutely 100 percent mean every word.
Sure, I know that many out there who might be reading this column would laugh, shake their head and call me crazy to think that I, at the mere age of 37 (tomorrow), am not anywhere close to “old.” But yet, there are those who are younger than me and I remember all too well when I was 21 thinking about the day I might be nearing my 40s and thought, at that time, how old that sounded.
Truth is, no matter what your age, time stops for no one and there will always be someone older and younger than you, so the key to life, I believe, is just to enjoy it.
Life should be celebrated with every tick of our clock, because as the saying goes, there are those who are not blessed with the ability to grow old. For that reason alone, I hope we all embrace it. Even if it does feel like embracing a prickly porcupine that reminds us come a certain age that we are not getting any younger.
I don’t like the sound of now being “in my late 30s,” although I can honestly count my blessings in life instead of my shortcomings; for someone my age, with all I have faced, I have to pat myself on my back, like I think we all should do on our birthdays and tell myself job well done.
Another year in the books and if I did anything right, it was embracing the year head on, learning all I could, growing, maturing and enjoying the time I spent with friends and family to the fullest.
When all is said and done, that is all that matters most anyways.
So tomorrow, when I crawl home after a long day’s work, plop myself on the couch and do “absolutely nothing,” I won’t focus on the fact that my mortal clock is ticking away and I am now another year older.
No, I will focus on my accomplishments so far and the obstacles I have overcome in the short, now nearing longer, time that I have been on this earth.
Like they say, 40 is the new 20. But I still plan on enjoying the next three years before I have to embrace it.