The Birthday Cometh.

Lately I have been hearing a lot of the same question - "So you're turning 40, how do you feel about that?"
I think people expect you to be dreading the day, as if I waking up on your birthday will produce crows feet, grey hair and all of those other things you expected when this day came. 
Fortunately time has so far been kind to me. 
My sister on turning 30 was a hysterical mess, you'd have thought her life was over. She hadn't accomplished what she thought she would, she wasn't where she thought she'd be, she was just damned unhappy.
It's true you can sit back and lament what you haven't achieved, what you haven't got so far in life but what is the point? Its not like you can go back.
A month ago if someone had asked me how I was going to celebrate 40 and how I'd feel this week I couldn't have told them. It was still an abstract idea.
This week is shaping up to be a festival of celebrations. Three dinners to attend and a lunch date. That's more social than I have been in ten years.
At my fortnightly psych appointment I was talking about milestones that I hadn't achieved or hadn't been able to achieve. A wedding, a baby, first dates, being kissed on New Years Eve.
While there are things that I can't ever have (the baby) there are aspects of the others that I can do something about.
I'm not overly fussed about a wedding but this week I'm dressing in a gorgeous long red silk dress, buying the ruby slippers to go with them and having my hair and make up done just as you would for a wedding. So the fuss the primping and the pampering and a great meal without all that extra stress that goes with a wedding. 

A baby, can't have it and over the years I have felt left out of a huge part of being a female. I don't belong to any stroller wielding mummy's club that goes regularly to lunches and coffee dates. My girlfriends all became mothers and I became for some time aunty baby sitter. But these friends have drifted away, as much my fault as theirs. They shut me out of certain things and I responded by freezing them out. Acknowledging this won't bring them back into my sphere but at least now I can let it go to some extent.

A kiss for New Years Eve, something to keep in mind for later in the year. 
Milestones aren't always automatic. And the older you get the harder you sometimes have to work to clock these perceived adult milestones. That's what this next year will be about, changing my thinking, accepting that which is inevitable, being proactive about what I want to get out of this next decade.