22 years ago today it was my very last day of high school, my high school graduation ceremony, and my 18th birthday.
I remember so much from that day…going out to dinner with my family, staying out all that night with my friends, and taking 8 million photos. But most of all I distinctly remember feeling a very real, very literal sense that my entire life lay before me and that my possibities were endless.
Days like this only happen once in a lifetime (I said to myself) …drink in the air…photograph this on your heart…you are young and wild and free and this day will never happen again.
Who would have guessed that 22 years later it would in fact be the last day of the school year for my children (where my oldest would be graduating from elementary school), and my 40th birthday…and that to celebrate my closest friends (my siblings) flew me to Disneyland where we stayed out all night and didn’t return home until the next morning…and that tonight I would be going out to dinner with my family all while taking 8 million photographs?
Not me!
But I also wouldn’t have guessed that in the inbetween time of these two monumental days in my life that I would have married a friend (formerly an annoyance) from high school, earned two college degrees, taught art at a lock down school and special education at a public junior high, become a mother to 3 amazing children, started a blog, written a book, designed lines of fabric or pretty much anything else I have done up until this point.
But you know what else I wouldn’t have guessed??? That this morning I would have the exact same very real, very literal sense that my whole life still lays before me and that my possibilities are endless that I had 22 years ago. And that, unbelievably, this 40 year old married, homemaking, mother of 3 feels even more free than she did 22 years ago.
It’s true. All of it. Every single word.
How did this happen??? How did I get lucky enough to live the same day twice…and live it even better the second time???
I don’t know..but I’ll tell you what. I’m giving my 40 year old self the same advice I gave my 18 year old self….drink in the air…photograph this on your heart…you are young and wild and free…and this day will never happen again.
(Or it might…it might just happen all over again…you never can tell what a few decades can do!)
-liZ
PS: Is it wrong that I am loving turning 40? I even have a list of the 40 things I am going to do this year to celebrate my 40 trips around the sun. And I got myself a special journal to document the said 40 things. I’m calling them out right now—my 40’s—you are going to be my favorite decade!
Happy 40th year! Mine has been pretty special too!
I find as we mature, we gain more confidence, more wisdom, more insight, a calming peace that was not there the year before, a greater sense of self. I feel every year is another opportunity to learn something, to challenge myself to be a better, more intuitive person, to shower others with love, to touch someone else’s life in a small way.
Enjoy your 40’s. Happy Birthday to you. May your light shine brightly in the lives that you touch.