Midlife Crisis (.) (!) (?)

The text came across my phone: 

Only 39 more days of being 39~

I laughed and asked what the plans were. It seemed a day worth celebrating, especially if you love numbers the way I do. 

My favorite text came from this same friend, literally minutes after the New Year had been rung in. 

Um, is this the year we turn 40?

I really did laugh aloud for a bit. It seems that in trying to forget how old we are, we truly forgot how old we are. 

Forty

It just doesn't seem possible. 

I blame my mother, partially. She was young when she had me, so my perception of age has always been a little skewed. She was forty when I got married. It really seems as if I should be further along on the path of life at this point. 

I've been preparing myself for some time, saying at every opportunity, "Well, I'm almost 40..." to which my friends have replied, "You are not." (I've done this for a couple of years.)

It has helped. I can say the word "forty" without hyperventilating.

Sort of.

A magazine yelled at me from the checkout line that "50 is the new 30" which of course means that 40 is the new 20. Except I don't want to be 20 again. I was a disaster in my 20's. 

And because I am who I am and I do what I do, I've been full of introspect about this impending birthday. 

Because truly, no matter how you gloss it over, dress it up, or package it, my life is half over.

My life is half over. 

The life expectancy is 80 for women in this country.

See? Half over.

That's a lot to take in.

It's taken a bit of effort to understand exactly why this has me in a pinch.

It could be simple vanity. Things aren't exactly how or where they were when I was 20. There are wrinkles and (lots and lots) of gray hair. I've been forced to recognize that perhaps I put more stock in my appearance than I'd like to admit. I never thought I'd be one of those women who refused to age gracefully, but I'm sitting here slightly aggravated that my body seems much more acceptant of this impending birthday than my mind does.

How silly.

More than this, though, is the constant ticker that runs in my mind, keeping an invisible yet incredibly tangible list of ways that I have failed God in my life.

I keep wondering, "What if my life ended now?"

I don't feel like I have half of a life's worth of gifts to offer Him.

It's not that I don't want to look in His face. I do. I just sort of feel like I'd be showing up at someone's house for dinner with an inadequate hostess gift.

Not to reduce heaven to going to a friend's house for dinner.

But that's what it feels like.

What do I have to offer Him? And why do I feel like I'm begging Him for more time to do more stuff to offer Him? And why now? Why does this birthday bring this to light in me?

Because it's HALF WAY OVER and I've only lived one solid good decade for Him?

This is when I hear a well meaning friend say, "Honestly, Amy, why do you wear yourself out with all this overthinking? Don't you get tired of it?"

Or I see my sweet friend in the midst of her cleaning the kitchen paused, with dish cloth in hand, looking at me and saying, "Amy, you are intense."

I blinked hard after that one.

I wasn't even doing anything other than quietly sweeping the floor. I guess she meant in general.

Intense? I don't feel intense. I thought I kept that bottled up pretty well.

Obviously not.

I hear the accusations, "You need to lighten up."

Think less. Chill out. Go with the flow.

Especially now. With this huge impending birthday coming up.

Maybe it's wrong to pause and take inventory, but it feels necessary. How did I mess up the first forty years? What would I like to do differently in the next forty? What would I change?

It feels like a fresh start in some ways. A change to get it all right and keep it right.

I don't want to mess up again. I don't want to live through another day of debauchery, much less another decade.

I feel resolve welling up in me. I just want to do this half right.

I read through Jonathan Edwards' Resolutions and find myself yelling, "YES!!!"

Resolved, that I will live so as I shall wish I had done when I come to die.


Maybe I should care less what people think. Maybe I should take intense as a compliment.

Maybe being forty is the decade in which you get to stop doing what you've done your whole life so that people will like you. Maybe this is the decade in which I do what makes me like myself.

Maybe being forty makes you care less because half your life is over and you realize you don't have that much more time to do what really matters - what really lasts, and you're done fooling around with the stuff that won't last.

Maybe I'll stop apologizing for thinking so much. Maybe I'll stop apologizing for being an introvert. Maybe I'll stop apologizing for wanting to study my Bible more than playing on the internet. Maybe I'll stop apologizing for being intense. Maybe I'll stop feeling guilty for saying "no" and for limiting abuse and not caring what people think. Maybe I'll start saying, "You know, that's not okay with me. You can't say that. Or do that. You need to stop." instead letting people do what they want and then feeling the effects of their actions.

That would be nice.

I'm not there yet.

But I'm still 39, so there's hope.