As I start writing this, Gwen Stefani is demanding to know ‘what I am waiting for’. Perhaps her bleats from the radio are rhetorical, but I can’t help asking myself the same thing. What am I waiting for? Anything in particular, or is it all good, right now? Good bloody question, Gwen!
In a few days I turn 43. Let’s say, all else going well, I live to enjoy 85 (I plan to live longer, and to be a spectacular octogenarian, but I am picking a good number to aim for). If 85 is my magic number, then I am now more than half way through my life.
There are many reason to be happy about 43. Firstly, I don’t feel it. I know, lucky me, but I don’t. I just feel like a much smarter, less-likely-to-take-any-crap, more financially-savvy version of my 28 year old self. Those are all other reasons to be happy about 43.
In my 20s I thought I knew it all, and in my 30s I realized that I didn’t. The first few years of my 40s has been about realizing that it’s okay that I don’t know it all.
This means I am less inclined to labor a point ’til my love ones want to stab me in the eye with a cheese knife (the one with the sharp little fork on the end).
It also means I can rely on others to know the stuff that I just don’t care to know about – like how to set up the router and how to make martini. It also makes me very grateful when someone else takes on these things that I don’t care to know about.
And, when Ben corrects my pronunciation of a word I have been saying wrong since I learned it from a book 20 years ago, I can just shrug and say, “Huh, how about that. All these years. Thanks, babe.”
The best thing about being 43, though, is that I laugh at myself a lot more than I ever did at 28, or 38 for that matter. I think at this rate I will find myself completely hilarious by the time I am 60, and bloody hysterical at 80. At 85, I will be that funny, laughing lady who still rides her motorcycle. Note to self: learn to ride a motorcycle.
But seriously…
As the lovely wishes of ‘happy birthday’ start to arrive – in person, online, on the phone and in the mail, I feel very blessed to have a beautiful person to share my life and laughter with, a wonderful family, and friends who have become family over the years.
And, Gwen, I am not really waiting for anything.
Sandy Barker | Author 