I embark now on my fortieth year… oh, I haven’t turned 40 yet, but considering my first year was counted only in months, THIS would be my fortieth year--being those twelve months following my 39th birthday. which was last week. guess your invitation got lost in the mail.
I don’t feel 40.
I don’t feel 40.
I see forty as a woman with dark, wavy hair. She wears it long, just passed her shoulders, pulled away from her face to highlight a white streak off the coast of her forehead. She has little wrinkles around her lips and a sandpaper voice like suzanne pleshette. She works as a secretary in an office on the 9th floor and puts a beige plastic cover on her typewriter every day before she leaves. She has a cat named tiki that would leave globs of white fur around her spotless apartment, except that she brushes it every night while she watches CSI and then the first 15 minutes of the news before she snuggles into her queen size bed by herself.
I imagine forty as a boring, unmarried loner who smokes too much and needs a good dye job.
I was reading 7 Habits of Highly Successful People the other night. Stephen Covey used to be all over television in the early 90s. he was an organizational guru with a happy, good-looking family and a book that shot off the best seller list and into the front desk drawer of executives all over the place. I’ve had the book I guess about 14 years or so… can’t tell you if I’ve ever gotten past the first chapter. But that’s irrelevant to the point.. so…onto the point. Right.
In his introduction (I think I’ve read that about 12 times since I bought the book), he talks about perception. First, that perception is personal reality: which I am totally down with. So if perception is (our) reality, if we can learn to adjust our perception to a more positive personal reality, then we can simultaneously, begin to see our world, and the WHOLE world, in a happier, more successful light. He calls it a paradigm shift; and I get it, but paradigm always makes me think of a mail order catalog; so he might as well call it a lillian vernon shift … but I’m veering away again, aren’t i.
Anyhoo, for whatever reason, I perceive 40 as a dull, lack-luster age that doesn’t hold much promise for me as a single girl. Yet, I know that’s not me: first, there’s no way I’d sit through a full episode of CSI unless the cat had fallen asleep on my face and suffocated me. as far as that goes, when I live alone and have a furry cat named tiki, it’s time to check me into the white jacket motel.
So I don’t feel forty; I don’t look forty (what does forty look like to YOU?) and I don’t act like my idea of forty… except for just one little piece of the puzzle: being single.
Seems like, as each year rolls around on itself from start to close, I expect that to be the year I meet … “HIM” … the famed and heralded him.
But this year, not so much. at least not so far.
I’ve had a few hims sniffing around the secretary pool lately. some hung around a while, helped me cover up the typewriter. one or two even offered to brush tiki... but I’m picky about who I let pet my… ...cat. (seriously--you didn’t think I was actually going to go there, did you?)
I imagine forty as a boring, unmarried loner who smokes too much and needs a good dye job.
I was reading 7 Habits of Highly Successful People the other night. Stephen Covey used to be all over television in the early 90s. he was an organizational guru with a happy, good-looking family and a book that shot off the best seller list and into the front desk drawer of executives all over the place. I’ve had the book I guess about 14 years or so… can’t tell you if I’ve ever gotten past the first chapter. But that’s irrelevant to the point.. so…onto the point. Right.
In his introduction (I think I’ve read that about 12 times since I bought the book), he talks about perception. First, that perception is personal reality: which I am totally down with. So if perception is (our) reality, if we can learn to adjust our perception to a more positive personal reality, then we can simultaneously, begin to see our world, and the WHOLE world, in a happier, more successful light. He calls it a paradigm shift; and I get it, but paradigm always makes me think of a mail order catalog; so he might as well call it a lillian vernon shift … but I’m veering away again, aren’t i.
Anyhoo, for whatever reason, I perceive 40 as a dull, lack-luster age that doesn’t hold much promise for me as a single girl. Yet, I know that’s not me: first, there’s no way I’d sit through a full episode of CSI unless the cat had fallen asleep on my face and suffocated me. as far as that goes, when I live alone and have a furry cat named tiki, it’s time to check me into the white jacket motel.
So I don’t feel forty; I don’t look forty (what does forty look like to YOU?) and I don’t act like my idea of forty… except for just one little piece of the puzzle: being single.
Seems like, as each year rolls around on itself from start to close, I expect that to be the year I meet … “HIM” … the famed and heralded him.
But this year, not so much. at least not so far.
I’ve had a few hims sniffing around the secretary pool lately. some hung around a while, helped me cover up the typewriter. one or two even offered to brush tiki... but I’m picky about who I let pet my… ...cat. (seriously--you didn’t think I was actually going to go there, did you?)
this year, I’m not expecting, waiting for or even interested in finding Mr. Him. Because as I begin to shift in my perception seat, I am starting to see this world with my own forty-year old eyes and it’s looking pretty dang good from this unicycle. It feels right. It feels natural.
So hold onto your cowboy hats kids, we’re hitting an open field along this trail, and I’m planning on letting my horse run it out. I’ve got a firm grip on my own horn, and I’m ready to blow. happy birthday to the coolest chick I know: me.
