My last weekend...

...as a woman in my 30's.

Wow.

I am completely disillusioned. Where the hell is my flying car? How come I can't hop a flight to the moon, or to Mars? Where's my dad-blasted holodeck? I tell ya, life is one big disappointment around here.

Okay, not really.

We do have some pretty cool toys ~ this laptop, for instance, which is hooked up (wirelessly, natch) to the Interwebs. Not to mention the DVR, the big screen television, HD movies and surround sound at home, and phones that we carry with us. Still, I want that flying car. AND the trip to the moon. ;)

I am not having nearly as hard a time with turning 40 as I did with turning 30. Better living through chemistry, perhaps? Or is it just that I'm so much more comfortable in my skin now? A little of both, most likely. I do keep turning corners in my pointed little head, though, and discovering that "I'm almost 40!!!!" thought, beaming itself across my brain in neon letters about 20 feet high. Wednesday. I will be 40 on Wednesday. That's halfway to 80, which if I am lucky, I will live to see. (My grandmother lived to be 82, so it's not out of the realm of possibility....) If so, I am halfway done. True middle age starts, well, NOW!

Dang.

I've always felt like an adult in my head ~ always. I never remember feeling particularly childish, even when I was a child. My "perfect age" seemed to be around 32-33...that's just how old I felt inside, no matter what the actual number of years I had on the planet. Even now, when someone asks my age, I have to think about it to skip past that "33" as an answer. I wonder if that will change now that I have a "4" in my number?

Nah, probably not.

I have a whole list of ways to determine my place in life, just like everyone else does. I've been married for 18 years. My daughter is 11 years old. My parents are 60 and almost 63. My sister is 34. I worked at a single job for 15 years. I've been a stay-at-home mom for almost 6 years. It's been 6 years since my elevator accidents ~ the two days that wrecked my physical being and changed my life irrevocably. My best friend has been gone for 7 years, my Nana for almost 13 years.

I still marvel over all the things that can happen in 10 years. Where will I be in 2018? Staring at my 50th birthday? How much has changed in this last decade? So much ~ too much to put into words, really. And the decade before that ~ when I was still in my 20s and all things were still wide open and possible. The decade before that saw me grow from a child into a married woman. Whoa. And the first decade ~ the longest one, in memory, anyway ~ my childhood, the foundation of the person I am now. The very birth of "me", at least in this iteration.

Who knows what comes next? I am open to all the possibilities. I know that when I look back over this decade, I will see many changes ~ sorrow, joy, and laughter. I hope I also see wit and wisdom, accumulating in this body and in this soul. Acceptance of my flaws and my humanity ~ and a realization of at least a few of my dreams.

Heck, maybe even a flying car. ;)