Happiest of Birthdays

Voila! We are finally back in blogland! After a few weeks of technical difficulties, we can now post to this address again. I have a thousand great pictures to post--from the great Egyptian costume I glued together for Luke to the crazy facial expressions on the face of our sweet Grace--we love our pictures.

Now. . . .on to the subject of this post . . .

Last Friday I celebrated my 40th birthday. In my fantasy world, I had planned to gather together all my best gal pals in some fun location and spend the day together laughing and catching up IN PERSON. However, the time and the money for such an event never presented itself, and I decided to shift to Plan B.

I wrote an email to those friends, beginning with my new favorite quote--from a book titled Monday Morning Faith--about turning 40: "How I reached this milestone so fast and how I could feel so young on the inside and so ancient on the outside still puzzled me. I used to be a brunette, but my hair was showing touches of silver, and if those were laugh lines around my eyes, I must have been having a better time than I realized."

Love it!

Then, I invited each friend to join me in a virtual party, because what I really wanted for my birthday had nothing to do with gifts or cake or surprises. I just wanted to have time. I wanted to have the chance to tell each of them how much I appreciate and value their presence in my life, both in the past and in the present. In my email, I tried to communicate that to them, and I wanted them to know that this birthday--to me--was a celebration of all the good things in my life, of which they are a significant part.

In reply, I received some of the most thoughtful and kind notes I've ever gotten. As a person who loves written notes--either by hand or through email--I was absolutely delighted. I am apparently a really fabulous, wonderful person--because if these people say so, it must be true! :-)

Most of my friends have passed the 40 milestone--some very recently, and some by several years--and all promised that the "land of the 40's" will provide a very good landscape.

I am going to post snippets from a few of their posts:

"It is GOOOOOOOD to turn 40. Sort of feels like you've reached Your Place in the tribe and that you have enough life under your belt to offer a few opinions on things (and offer those with a serious bit of confidence!)"

"I've been 40 for exactly a year now, and I'm not sure that I've got any words of wisdom to share. The only thing I have as I walk down this short, happy, long, sad, pathway of life is increasing perspective. As my kids have one foot out of the nest, I want to capture every moment in a time capsule so that I can bring it back out when they are gone and remember what they looked like when they slept, what they smelled like when they came home from school (yes, even my boys), and what treasures they spoke (both sweet, funny, and ridiculous)."

"Over and over I find that women after 30, and more so after 40, 'find themselves.' They care less about what people think of them, and more about what they think of themselves. They become stronger, wiser, bolder, and effect their worlds in such powerful ways. They meet God in the hustle/bustle of life, and in the quiet places. They focus more on big pictures and eternal issues and less on the trivial . . . I have found that I laugh more, and laugh loudly. I throw caution to the wind . . . I say what I think and try to care less in the middle of the night about whether or not I made an absolute fool of myself. I don't wear pantyhose, and sometimes I even give myself the bigger half of the cookie."

One friend even told about the 40th party she gave for her husband:
"We had a 'reverse' party. The guests dressed us as kids (short pants, pigtails, freckles, etc). We played musical chairs and pin-the-tail on the donkey. Everyone made their own ice cream sundaes which turned out to be basically disgusting concoctions. I asked them to bring toys for gifts, which my husband unwrapped; then the next day, we took them to the Children's Medical Center." What a great idea!

I even got an email from my friend in Africa, who ate a piece of cheesecake (a rarity and a real treat) in honor of the party; how fun!

In addition to this sage and humorous advice, these friends showered me with encouragement and great blessings--so much so that I had to ask myself repeatedly, "Is she talking about ME?" That is one of the most inspiring characteristics of friends--they like to show you your best self, rather than the person you are in your small and most unappealing moments--of which, in the last 40 years, there have been TOO MANY to count.

Thank you to each of you who took the time to celebrate the day with me. You can't imagine how much each note meant; I suspect I will read and re-read them many times. I promise you that any letter ever sent to me will never be wasted; each is a treasure, and while I try not to save and hoard very many things, I always save my letters, these quiet gems of friendship and love.

Hats off to all of you beautiful 40+ (or almost 40) year old friends;you make the journey infinitely more fun and interesting!

(By the way, I celebrated the day with my family. Since getting back home on Sunday, I have been SICK. To top it off, I missed work yesterday because I was covered in hives--from head to toe. My face was so broken out and swollen that I couldn't wear makeup and could barely open my eyes. And itchy! A trip to the doctor, a prescription for steroids, and a tube of hydrocortisone cream later, I'm just about back to normal. I've decided that I am experiencing some kind of post-traumatic stress disorder from turning 40--ie, I thought I was really good with it, but my body turned traitor on me! Ha! Anyone else ever have this experience?)

Love to you all!
Jana