Past Lives

image via halfbakedharvest.com

Last month I had a big birthday. And maybe because I work at a tech company with mostly younger colleagues, I feel old. I feel blessed to be growing and evolving, of course, and I even assured a wary girlfriend recently that this decade will be magical. But it doesn't feel all that magical to be called "ma'am" at the grocery store checkout. Forty feels middle-aged, and I've been feeling a bit conflicted about this b-day.

Going into this milestone birthday I felt extra emotional. Driving home from the train station one night during my birthday week, the song I Need You by America came on my beloved Bridge Sirius station (quintessential middle-aged listening). I started bawling. I wasn't thinking about what I need now; I was thinking about what my younger self needed. What she didn't get.

And maybe my subconscious self feels the weight of 40; knows that when my parents were 40, their marriage was falling apart; knows that I was a little girl, the same age as my older daughter, needing a reassurance that didn't come.

Now, all these years later, I wanted this milestone birthday to be perfect. I decided to celebrate in a super low-key manner: some pampering for myself and a few tame dinners. Regardless, I felt a certain pressure for the actual day to feel.. different, extra special. My family and friends showed up for me; they called and texted and sent a few gifts. I should've felt content. I didn't. I felt cranky. And then I felt guilty for being in a crabby mood.

I had stayed up late the night before, and was woken early by my younger daughter on the Big Day. I didn't get to see my older daughter before school. Things were not unfolding perfectly. I was in a funk and I couldn't snap out of it. I even sent off a hasty, insensitive text to a friend, and then I spiraled about it. Overall, the day was not good vibes.

That night we did dinner at home with the kids and then Hubs and I got cozy and watched a beautiful film, Past Lives. It was so.. perfect. A gorgeous movie with appropriate messaging for a birthday viewing. Past Lives is about love and destiny, and it's about encompassing different versions of ourselves, and how we reconcile then with now.

I loved it. Hubs fell asleep :) Just as we were finishing the movie, and just as my 40th birthday was coming to a close, Liv woke and came to our room to snuggle. We reminisced about the first few years of her childhood, AKA my thirties. It was a beautiful birthday moment. I also received a touching text from one of my closest friends at that same time. It included lots of love and well wishes and hit the nail on the head for some of my goals for this fresh decade: "I hope 40s bring nothing but love and creativity and freedom and health and belly laughs." Yes please. All of that, and more.

Looking back on my grumpy mood on The Day, I feel like a birthday brat. How could I be upset when I have so many blessings, knock on wood. The birthday messages and gifts are the cherry on top. To be truly seen by some people, to be able to uncover layers of conditioning and trauma and come home to my True Self, to be living this process and mothering my girls and myself, that is where I am right now. That is just right.

This decade will have pure joy and crappy moods, ups and downs, such is life. Fortunately I am doing the work to really feel it all, and hopefully get better at allowing what comes, and letting go.

And now I can scoop up my younger self--a past life, if you will--give her reassurance, tell her she's OK. A version of her is 40 (!) and she's OK, even when she feels down. The highs are coming, and going, and coming back richer and fuller and deeper and truer, and we're more than OK.

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