Another Birthday {CELEBRATE This Week: 146}

I'm glad you are here to celebrate! 

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I am thirty-nine.
Although the sentence is simple and I understand each word on its own, when I squish them together, they do not make sense.

I am almost forty.
It is a true statement, but feels like it needs a question mark.

I am almost forty?
That reads more true.

I thought I was turning thirty-six. Andy chuckled and said, "You blew by thirty-six awhile ago."
"I don't remember," I said.
"Probably not," he agreed. "You've had more important things to think about."

I am thirty-nine.
It gives me pause. The days vaporize, and I'm left holding thirty-nine years.

My arms are full.
How do you unpack thirty-nine years in a few words?

I scroll through my photos, looking for one of me. Maybe the story of thirty-nine years will unfold in an image.  A few weeks back, Andy snapped a few pictures of me while I was finishing the latest revisions of my book.

There I am in the middle of our living room, the dog stretched out beside me, and I'm sorting-out chapter 18, trying to make it take shape. The only way I can get it to behave was to print a hard copy, and go after the parts with scissors and tape them back together. Then rewrite in on my computer. Sometimes hindsight is the only way to make sense of things.

I supposed it is appropriate that the picture I select is one of me in the midst of revision. This is the truth of the thirty-nine years I hold. They didn't go how they were planned. I spend a lot of time rewriting and adjusting and making sense of things with hindsight and story and a handful of souls who somehow wiggled into my heart and became closest to me, even though I'm good at holding the world at a distance.

In my thirty-nine years, I've learned to rewrite my story over and over in order to make it stronger when things didn't go as planned. I didn't plan to marry that Andy Ayres. He was too wild, and I was too practical. I didn't plan to be a momma to a baby grown in another woman's body. I didn't plan to adopt daughters who started life with another momma and followed a trail of hard. I didn't plan to be a momma to a son who lived too many years without me and now holds my hand, his dark skin against my light, and says, "I'm glad I get to have you as my forever mom." I didn't even think about forever families, let alone plan to become one.

I didn't plan to become an English teacher. I didn't plan to write a book. I didn't plan to start a blog. I didn't plan to walk away just when that blog was gaining in popularity.

For someone who feels she is well-planned, looking at the thirty-nine years piled in my arms, it seems like the moments leading to a well-lived life were all unplanned and the story rewritten accordingly. The stories lining up on the pages in the photo wrap around my storylines of being a momma, writer, and teacher.

I am thirty-nine.
I hold the years and celebrate a life that didn't go as planned and a story that is reshaped again and again. This is the beautiful mess of a life well-lived.

Thanks for celebrating with me.

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