Blooming Mode: Turning 40

This past week, my child gifted me a serendipitous way to start this email for a topic heavy on my heart. And for a long time. Let's go.

I love my backyard flowers; my native perennials greet me yearly, each time fuller and more robust. I toy around with different seeds and bulbs, excited to see what my yard tolerates and rejects.

Part of my daily backyard ritual is letting Palmer lead me to the water hose, turning it on for splashing, and providing my plants a needed gulp of hydration. When Palmer gets excited, they wave their little arms in the air, a nonverbal message declaring to the world, "Yes! This is AWESOME”. This particular day, their joyous arms met my lily bush, bopping the first nearly opened fuschia bud off, bouncing it to the ground. In a state of horror (my illusion of this innocent death), my friend Kelly, who witnessed the ordeal, calmly said, “I think it’ll be okay. Put it in water.” So I did. Overnight, almost a big f-u from the flower to my doubt, the bud opened, and a deep purple lily bloomed. A premature move on its end, showing me up and serving a very needed reminder: hey, it’s not too late.

I often find when someone exposes what they're moving through in life, beyond the visible surface, I can mirror it in some capacity. This is why we should sit into those vulnerable spaces and say what’s brewing inside our hearts and minds. It is our experience that connects us, reminding you and me we are not alone. So my share is this, I am on the precipice of turning 40 in August. Being 39 for an entire year has felt like an existence between two worlds. Fading out of my 30’s, the epicenter of so much life and learning, and entering midlife has felt tremendously complicated. The reality has been met with grief, resentment, confidence, and celebration - a complete juxtaposition of emotions that actually makes total sense when we are faced with…mortality.

One thing that is true for me: I’m not where I thought I’d be.

One thing that isn't true that I've told myself (too many times): It’s too late.

Enters in the (hopefully obvious) theme of this email: it's never too late.

A forced push into a new decade of life often makes us scan our entire existence up to this point, an emotional inventory that can brew feelings of inadequacy, satisfaction, peace, or confidence. I’ve found that we carry them all, as complicated humans often do. Interesting to choose vulnerability here, a post on my website to strangers and familiars because with close friends, shedding my outer protective layer and allowing them to see/hear the depths of me is proven very difficult. Reversing this has become a new active practice (I thank one person in particular for this opening and I hope you're reading. Thank you, thank you.) When discussing this big age transition with friends, I try to suss out who's attempting to gas me up with false bravery, but I can’t put my finger on the culprits. They all tell me the same thing, so I’m beginning to allow myself to believe their responses:

“It’s not too late, Bethany. It’s the perfect time for a restart.’

“You can still do all the things and everything.”

“There is still so much ahead.”

So, if this analytical Virgo demi-pessimist is starting to feel a fuller and more robust life exists for me starting at 40, maybe you need to hear it for whatever age or season of life you are in. After 8 years of letting a copy of The Artists Way take permanent residence on my bookshelf, a recommendation from my wise therapist forever ago, I’ve finally opened it and begun the workbook. And it is work. The first section felt as if it was written for my aimless spirit or for anyone unsatisfied - whose creativity is exhausted or needs to be exhumed. This is the part that I can't get out of my mind. The words hit home:

“But do you know how old I will be by the time I learn to really play the piano / act / paint / write a decent play?"

Yes . . . the same age you will be if you don't.”

It’s never too late, these words and the unfurled lily drill into me. Do. Make. Love. Discover. Don’t don’t. I’ve seen the devastating effects on people who close themselves off to pleasure with age. This is not the path for any of us. Our beautiful bodies, brains, and hearts don’t deserve shutting down opportunities for romance, silliness, and discovery with each year we grow. Aging is for more. More, more, more!

So, really, this email is a selfish one; it’s for me to hold myself accountable to. I must live in this truth if I share these words with you. While I share for personal liability, I also offer a line of connection to you if this resonates. Hey, me too. Our shared light and dark are the base of community, pals. 

In one year, at 39 years young, I've done more than ever: I've embraced single parenting, I've started telling my friends “I love you” for the first time, I got bangs, I fell in love and it changed how I love, I'm buying a trampoline for the backyard, I'm going to learn ballet, and I'm going to start writing more. What does more look like for you? Where can you start today? Literally today. Now look at me holding you accountable.

There is always time for blooming, even if the conditions aren't what you expected. May this message land softly in a place where you need it most.

-Bethany