For the past few weeks, I've been talking about my birthday coming up; and I've been trying to bring myself to be really enthused about it... But I'm just not.

In all honesty, I think COVID-19 played a major role in my disappointment.

Well, let me clarify:  I'm extremely grateful to see another day/year. However with each birthday, I always look back at the number of years I've lived and how far I've come in those years.  I'm usually disappointed and vow to make the next year the best, and I do make some changes.  But this year, it's different. This year, I turn 40!

What's so different about turning 40 than turning 39? Well, at 39 I had the idea that I needed to get my life together, but this is how I viewed the chronology of age:

  • 21- I'm grown/legal.
  • 25- I'm grown and more mature than I was at 21 because I am working in what I choose as my career.
  • 29- Oh crap! I've been working and focusing on my career.  I might need to start thinking about settling down because I'm about to be 30.
  • 30- Uh oh! I should've thought this thing through. Now, I'm 30 and pregnant with a child I'll be raising alone.
  • 35- Dang! I should've chosen a different career... One from which I can retire because I haven't even started saving for retirement. Sixty-two is only 27 years away, and these 35 went by FAST!
  • 38- You better BLAZE this year, girl! Be .38 hot because you'll be 40 before you know it.
  • 39- You didn't do anything you set to do in year 38. You better get yourself together, girl.  Forty will be here soon!
  • Weeks before 40- You ain't did NETHIN!

At the beginning of 2020, I'd planned to do something big to mark my 40th birthday.  I was torn between having a massive event that would last from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. (a play on 929 or 9/29) or having people to join me for breakfast at 9 a.m., a late lunch at 2p.m., and a party at 9 p.m.

I thought I would do it the Saturday before my actual birthday. I'd made plans with performers and bakers. I planned to have everything catered and even included some things for kids (you know I have to include mine in some aspect).

Then came the coronavirus, which canceled everything. So, even though I didn't reach the goals I'd set in life, I thought it would still be cool to celebrate being GROWN grown... Yes at 40, you're GROWN grown! Knowing that I couldn't "put on for my city" on top of not accomplishing many of my life's goals, I became quite depressed.

I started doing all kinds of things that I thought would lift my spirits.  I took on projects in my house, I've purged and discarded, I've bought new shoes and clothes, and I keep reminding myself that there are so many people who didn't make it to 40 and that as long as there is breath in my body, I have a chance to change some things and accomplish some of my goals.

I just really want to break out of this funk!

I feel like a child who has just been asked, "So how does it feel to be (age)?"  We all know that there's no big difference from one age to the next. Yet, it really does seem to be.

I think that'll be my new goal in life: attend kids' birthday parties to warn them that the age really will feel different when they hit 40.

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