My Big 4-0!

I've been around a while.  A good while.  40 years, to be exact.  Really, really exact.  I have to laugh when I think of all the pressure on this "big birthday," and when images of the typical celebration come to mind:  gravestones in the front yard, black balloons, "Over the Hill" written on big banners, gifts of canes and denture cream and arthritis medicine.

There'll be none of that here.  (YAY!)  Ever since my 30th, just a few days after the World Trade Center bombings, I've seen birthdays in a different light.  Suddenly, the focus wasn't on how much closer I was to my final days, but on the fact that I was still living them.  It seemed selfish to whine about turning 30 when so many were grieving for a loved one that wouldn't celebrate that next birthday.

That's exactly where I am today.  Why complain, when I've been given another day to breathe, another day to watch my children breathe, another day to take part in this world--whether I do it with a cane or using arthritis medicine or denture cream.  (Thankfully, I'll only use one of those three!)


"However many years a man may live, let him enjoy them all."
  (Ecclesiastes 11:8) 

"All the days ordained for me were written in Your book before one of them came to be."              (Psalm 139:16b)