Stopped at the Turning 40 Checkpoint

I am going to blog in the order of recent events rather than by priority because in my very linear brain this is how things should go -- in order, from first to last. It makes me laugh that after all these years, I still find comfort in things that are ordered. My life, however, is not ordered or neat or able to be compartmentalized nicely, but I know that my comfort level rises when things have an order or a sense of place. Lately, being comforted is important.

I am 40.

I discovered that the weeks leading up to this momentous occasion were troubled and filled with questioning and doubt. For instance: How the hell did I get to be 40? I really graduated high school 22 years ago? What the #@$%^? I still remember everything about high school. I remember the lights of the football stadiums and the cool, crisp air of a fall night. I remember traveling on the bus to competitions and being afraid to raise my hand in class. I remember scavenger hunts with my church group and toilet papering houses in the middle of the night. I was cute and thin, but I didn't know it, which is amazing. I did have issues and neuroses and frustrations, but overall, I was happy knowing that my life was about to begin and savoring those great memories of school: a high school sweetheart, good friends, dances, and a horrible retail job.

I remember going to college and finding my passion in literature. I remember thinking I wanted to be wealthy and powerful, and so I started my college career majoring in business. After taking a Shakespeare class and doing really well, I realized that my passion lay with books and the written word -- not with numbers and dry, soulless theories about profit margins. I was hooked. My dream began to unfold: I would be poor initially, but I would be rich with wisdom. I would travel around the world and become the foremost Shakespeare/Renaissance/Jacobean scholar. I would settle the authorship question once and for all and the English would be so grateful (except for the Oxfordians) that I would be able to marry a fabulously wealthy Earl or Duke who would worship the ground I walked on, and I would live out my days in England raising four well-mannered boys who wore matching blazers and were schooled at Eton.

All right. Flash forward a lot of years. I am an unemployed mother of three who can barely remember enough Shakespearean characters to pass a Sporcle quiz. I am married, not to a wealthy English duke, but to a high school English teacher who thankfully is as much in love with the written word as I am. However, he is an American Lit scholar, which should give you an idea as to his shortcomings (totally kidding -- sort of). I do not have four boys. Instead I have a lovely 11-year-old daughter and rambunctious twin boys, age eight, who would never want to wear the same thing for fear of being mistaken for the other. I am tired and a bit haggard, and I look like a mom -- not the sexy, accomplished Lara Croft/Renaissance scholar with awesome biceps that I had pictured myself looking like at this advanced age. I was going to be the woman who defied age and who could command every man's attention when she walked into a room, no matter how old or young they were. Seriously, what happened to her?

Part of me laughs at the idealized future I had created for myself, and part of me mourns that dream. I don't think I ever truly believed that all of it would come true, but being able to dream and dream big about one's future is important. It gives those of us who like to control things a real sense of purpose and drives us to succeed. We want to be that idealized person, so we try to make as many of those elements fall into place as possible. We feel great while we are pursuing those dreams. We feel that there is nothing we can't do. Setbacks are minor; they only serve to steel our resolve and make us that much more persistent. Or the setbacks help us hone our course so that we take advantage of new opportunities or different possibilities that open up. I was on fire to create an amazing future for myself. I worked hard, and I made choices along the way. I just never really noticed that the choices were taking me farther and farther off my planned course.

I guess this birthday is hard because I have to acknowledge that on my way to England and tomb raiding (okay, manuscript reading), I made choices that landed me in Fountain Valley, in a little bungalow with three kids, a mortgage and a hard-working hubby. And now, it's time to let my old dreams go. It's not that I am still influenced by them, but their pull is strong. They have a type of power -- the power to say, "What if? What if you had done this instead?"

I am realizing that this type of thinking is dangerous because it makes you feel unfulfilled. It makes you feel that your life was a series of mistakes instead of choices. I do not want to stop dreaming, mind you. I will still dream and even dream big on occasion. However, I think this birthday is hard because I have to begin the grieving process. I have to mourn. I have to bury what I wanted to have happen 20 years ago. Living in the present and looking toward the future is a lot healthier. But 40 gives us pause. It makes us pause. It makes us stop at the checkpoint and look at our lives and assess where we've been and where we are.

Forty is a hard number, a real number, a concrete number. Is my life half over? If we're unafraid of our past or what's in store for us, we can continue past the checkpoint. Some sail by; I've watched them. They thumb their noses at the guards and drive straight through. Others, like me, have to get out and check behind the vehicle. We have to look at the tire treads and calculate how far we've traveled. We have to analyze the road and crane our necks to see the village we've left. Is it safe to proceed? Will it be worth it? Am I a willing participant or just a traveler?

It does seem a bit melodramatic to equate checkpoints and turning 40, I know. However, checkpoints with armed guards represent real terror, and right now, wondering whether I've lived the right life is terrifying too. My goal for this year is to get back in the jeep, thank the guards for their patience and drive slowly down the road.