I was reading a post on one of my old and long-since-forgotten blogs the other day which told the story of how my husband and I came to meet, marry and welcome into our arms and lives our beautiful baby girl - who is now seven and a big sister to her five year old brother - and it started me thinking about my life and how much it has changed over the past 10 years. Ten years and two months ago I was lonely, broken-hearted and plain old sad. After struggling through a series of short-lived and ill-considered romances with all of the wrong men, I was convinced I would never have the kind of love and life I had always envisioned for myself. I was truly devastated. Not that a relationship is the end-all-be-all. It isn't. And not that having a man in your life defines you as a woman. It doesn't. But for me having that love and creating my own happy, little family was the #1 utmost priority in my life, and when it didn't happen in my twenties. I thought I was doomed to be alone forever. After all I was thirty! The big 3-0. The age by which most of my friends had already experienced the blissful bounty of marriage - some of them twice. They had found that everlasting love, their soul mate, their lobster, yet there I was sullen, alone and ready to count myself out. I had missed the boat, that ship had sailed, insert-your-own-metaphor- here, but it was over for me. I was too old and too worn out and just plain done. I was THIRTY and SINGLE! It may as well have been a death sentence.
Of course I laugh at it now. The forty-year-old me finds the younger version incredibly silly and pathetic, although she is usually good for a laugh. But then the forty-year-old me has had the benefit of having all of the things the younger version was seeking: love, commitment, marriage, children. And I have had the benefit of seeing those things for what they are, and not through some Disney-inspired looking glass. I have experienced all of the highs and lows that come with marriage, pregnancy, child-rearing, all of it . And of course I now have the "I am forty and I don't have to give a shit what people think anymore" card that came in my "Forty and Fabulous" kit on my birthday. (If you are forty + you know exactly what I mean. If you are not, just wait, you will find out.)
My point is that in a matter of years which, God-willing, will equate to merely an eighth or so of my life everything changed. I did meet a man shortly before my 31st birthday who did fill that void in my life and to whom I have been happily married for 8 years. My life is nothing now as it was then. All of the worries and heartaches I felt at 30 have become moot. Of course new worries have taken their place. Things I never even thought about when I was a spring chicken. Things like my parents getting older, keeping my children safe, raising them to be thoughtful, intelligent, caring, etc. I don't think you ever outgrow fears, they just change as you move along your spectrum of life. But at least we can face those new fears with more strength and confidence, knowing that when we reach that next phase of our life, this mountain of fear that is in front of us now will be behind us, and when we look back from a distance will be but a small stone and we will laugh at ourselves for letting it intimidate us as much as it did. I know that when I hit the big 5-0 the fifty-year-old me will be asking herself "Why did I let those things bother me so much when I was forty?" That knowledge may not stop me from stressing when we are running late for the bus or yelling at my kids as they wipe their peanut butter hands on their jeans or any of that everyday crap we all deal. But when the house is quiet and I am alone with my thoughts it will comfort me and allow me to enjoy the gift of this family that I so very much wanted, and for which I am so truly grateful, and forget all of the rest. At least until tomorrow.
