A Milestone Birthday, or What I've Learned in 10 Years

I've been 40 now for 2 weeks. It's been a shock, and not a shock, at the same time. How can I be that old? How can I not be any older, given how I feel sometimes? 

I started thinking about how my life has changed since I turned 30. I gifted myself my first tattoo for my 30th birthday. I was 3 months from graduating with my DNA degree, the culmination of 12 years of higher education. Living in Tempe, AZ, single and on dating apps, Obama was still president...

And I was lonely. I was far from my family and support network and I've never been great at making close friendships (though I treasure the ones I have). 

Things have sure changed. 

Ten years later, I'm married to a wonderful man and we have two little boys. We celebrated our 6th anniversary 2 months ago, and are approaching 10 years of knowing each other, as we met a month after I moved back home in 2015. I've worked hard to put my extensive education to use, but also learned the hard way about burnout and how important it is to find a place to work that actually suits your needs, beyond just a paycheck and/or using knowledge you have. 

I've learned a lot about my mental and physical health, including some diagnoses (and neuroses!) and some trauma. I learned a TON when my husband and I got married; cohabitation was not something I was really prepared for, and I realized that there were differences between how I wanted to treat my loved ones and how I actually treated them. This is something I'm still working on, and probably will forever.

Becoming parents has been incredibly hard and incredibly rewarding. Our older son was 12 weeks early, and he and I were both in danger to start. He's now nearly 4 and has caught up completely in terms of developmental milestones, which means we're answering "why?" 100 times a day and setting boundaries and holding space for emotions and making consequences for hitting and kicking and absolutely loving the tar out of our feisty, curious little kid. Our younger son was born at 37 weeks gestation after a closely watched pregnancy, healthy but born with bilateral club feet, so at less than two weeks old he began treatment to straighten them out. He'll be 2 in a couple of months and runs, jumps, climbs, kicks, chases his brother, wrestles, has new words every day, and generally keeps us on our toes--sometimes literally, as we are constantly moving the things he shouldn't be able to reach yet. 

Parenting kids means parenting yourself, too, and doing your best not to pass on your own flaws. And you do it exhausted most of the time, especially when they're tiny and not sleeping through the night and need you to do everything. But then they don't need you to do everything, and they start saying "No, I!" or "I do!" or "I do it!" and it's the first of many shifts of letting go of the babies you hold so dear. Not far, never far, but not being needed in the same way contains its own devastation. 

We've been able to buy a house and set up our own little family, its own little miracle. So many blessings there: we found a house at an extraordinary price just before the market went absolutely nuts, and we got an excellent, low mortgage rate. So we have saved ourselves money in that regard, and have some equity to lean on if we ever need it. But we also have dealt with replacing major appliances, storm damage, power outages...owning your own home has a real learning curve. 

Moving back closer to my family was a prudent move in 2015, although it felt like I was giving up on being independent at the time. I didn't have a job lined up, the prospects were better at home than in the Phoenix area, and my living expenses would be cheaper. And I got to be close to my support network again, be part family members' lives physically and not just over the phone and video calls and texts--things I didn't realize I needed. I finally found work that felt "vocational" in the sense of using my knowledge and passions, but also that felt like I got out of it what I put into it, which hadn't happened previously and contributed to the burnout I struggled with. It's a rare workplace where you feel the freedom to be yourself and there's little social or political maneuvering, but rather a team of people working together to create something vital in our community. 

I'm 40 years old now, and I feel more comfortable in my own skin than I ever have before. I added a second tattoo (with my sisters) and am toying with the idea of a third. I'm happily married, I have two beautiful kids and a closely knit extended family, and I have a fulfilling, rewarding career. I've been able to address my own needs in ways I couldn't have imagined at age 30. 

I'm not lonely--or even alone, sometimes!--any more. Sometimes my introverted self gets overstimulated and overwrought, but I know now what to do about it when it happens. And I have people who love me and understand me and make room for me and my quirks, as I strive to do for them. What a gift.