is a single mama in the city, super-savvy editor, writer, video host and shameless shoe whore.
40
Tuesday, April 17, 2012 It's not midnight yet, but I feel I've crossed over into the next decade. I've feared this, mocked it, pretended it was further off than it was. But here I am, feeling good and happy and the kind of blessed that you hope comes as the apartment quiets and the minutes tick loudly by.
I had a professor once who said that it is critical for women to be honest about their age because then the world has visions of what it is to be fabulous at every age. And I believe that. At the time I was struggling with turning 25. My grad-school girlfriends rallied champagne and cooked a homemade pasta dinner that we ate on a card table in someone's living room. Then they took me to get my belly pierced, choosing for me an onyx bead to dangle from the hoop in my navel to fortify and heal me, to help me release the bad feelings I had for my rounded belly.
"Ahhh, you have the perfect belly for a ring," the piercing guy said as he threaded the foot-long needle through my skin. "These look best with a little curve."
And with the searing pain of being pierced, I felt the healing begin. Sure, I would love to have that scorned belly back, the one I thought was too big, too round, too much that was really smooth and lovely. Perhaps there's still some of that stuff to close up. But I wouldn't go back to 25. Or even 30.
Maybe I would return to 35. But only for the number, not for what was happening in my life then.
Because the truth is, long after the belly ring was lost and layers of skin grew over the hole where it once was, I can feel that onyx working at the center of me.
Today, there is a lot going on -- a lot of unrest, a lot in transition, much to change. But it is so good. I feel happy and healthy and proud of where I have come in these years. I have this amazing kid. I am in love with a man who astounds me every day. My family and friends have pulled in close. I have gifts that I can use to earn money to pay for this safe and bright and overheated home.
I left my therapist's office a few weeks ago after talking to her for too many minutes of our 45-minute hour about turning 40. This was my deadline for having another child! For getting my dream job! What about buying a house? She nodded a lot during that session, patted me on my arm as I left, and let the questions hang there in the hallway with me as I waited for the elevator to arrive.
As the doors opened, I saw my reflection in the mirror inside the elevator car. Dark hair below the shoulders, aviator sunglasses pushing back bangs, hot pink lipstick. High-heeled boots, dress, soft scarf looped around and around my neck. Leather bag, phone, keys to my own car, coffee. The glassy ping-ping of my boyfriend texting me.
This is me, I thought. And then how much it would have surprised me at 25 or 30 or even 35 to see this woman looking back at herself. I'd like to say it wasn't about how I look now, but it's everything about that. It is about letting that lady show herself, it is about taking a step back from today's worried questions to see where I have come to. And from. It's the deep sigh of baring my skin but this time having enough experience and compassion to tell myself it looks just right.
I was antsy in my own body back then, some years for good reason, other years simply out of practice. I knew there was something deeper, bigger, more there somewhere, I just wasn't sure how to get all the way to it. The lady in the elevator mirror may not have gotten all the way there on either count. But I could tell by looking she was closer.
Closer to being completely herself. So much closer.
Forty doesn't have to be hot pink lipstick and high-heeled boots. But for me, it is exactly where I am. Just like 25 was lace-up granny shoes and a tiny onyx bead on a sterling silver ring. Like 30 was corporate button-downs and 35 was clogs and cardigans and capris. Every button and lace and needle threaded was a little closer to this.
That feels more honest than ever. And who knows? Maybe this decade will be the one when the fire in my belly finally burns out any little bad feeling about the roundness that remains. And if it doesn't, I hope the hot pink lips will be wearing a smile to see that lady anyway.
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