Lordy Lordy Look Who's 40!

I decided months and months ago to embrace the fact that I would turn 40 this year.  The way I saw it, I could freak out and have a melt down and dread it (which would be a miserable way to live), or I could just take it for what it is--a number--or I could fully live it up and have fun with it.  When it comes down to it, it really is just a number.  I didn't have a melt down over 34 or 27 or whichever, why would I on this birthday?

None of us know how long we will live, so there's no reason to look at it as reaching "the hill" or halfway point or whatever.

I suppose that being single and childless at 40 could seem sad or depressing in comparison to being those things in my 30's...but I've dealt with them in my heart already and so my attitude towards those facts has nothing to do with my age.  Because I am single and childless I get to do so many things other people my age don't have the opportunity to do.

I spent several days before today training a bunch of mid-20 year olds who are all about to finish a two year internship.  All of them are at this weird stage in life where they've finished their undergraduate studies, have held a job for a few years...and yet have no idea what the next step is.  They don't have careers yet.  They don't have homes.  They're not married.  There are so many unknowns.

Every time I hang out with 20somethings who are in that place of life uncertainty (but who are so thankful they're not "old" like me, at 40), I am so thankful I am not in my 20's.

I have a job.  I have a home.  I have stability.  I know who I am and am comfortable in my own skin.

I didn't work a lot of that out until in my 30's.  I went through a lot of heartache in my 30's.  To be honest, I was sort of glad to leave my 30's behind.

I'm looking forward to my 40's and hoping that it lacks in drama.  I want to fully live the life I've been given, even if it doesn't look like anything I'd ever expected.  I want to travel and read and create and rest and love and live.  I've long prayed that God would bless me as He did Job, by making the second half of my life more blessed than the first.  So if 40 is the halfway point (and who but God is to say that it is?), than may the double portion begin now.