I’m hours from turning 40. I’ve been thinking about what I want to do to mark the occasion and to celebrate. Since my husband turned 40 back in September, I’ve mentally been in a kind of liminal state – anticipating turning 40 so much that I forget I haven’t yet, until someone tries to round up my age for me and I remind them I’m not there yet. I was anticipating it so much, I kind of forgot to make the most of the last vestiges of my youth. I squandered it on staring down 40 like there was only room in this town for one of us.
About two weeks ago I realized that if there was anything I really wanted to do in my 30s, now was the time. There wasn’t. I’ve considered another tattoo (which I haven’t ruled out but haven’t landed on a concept yet) and thought about doing iFly (which I didn’t think my pelvic floor could handle – thanks kiddos). In the end, I’m planning to mark the day by taking it off from work, getting my free Starbucks drink, maybe a mani-pedi, read Ashley Poston’s new book and go to dinner with some friends.
I’ve been a tad reflective, as this kind of birthday lends itself to. I’ve thought about what I have and haven’t accomplished in my life so far, I’ve thought about the things I’ve learned and the things I regret. Thankfully, there are not many things I really regret that time or relationship hasn’t mended. There was that time I loudly guffawed/cackled in shock/irony when my brother told me he and his wife were pregnant with boy twins. She cried. I felt awful. There was another time when a friend told me a lady yelled at her for her bad French at work (she was working at Second Cup downtown Montreal). She had mis-pronounced something that turned out offensive. I begged her to tell me, sure it couldn’t have been all that bad. She refused. I begged. I promised I wouldn’t laugh (I meant it! I was sure, like I said, it couldn’t be all that bad). She relented and told me that she had said “Sirop d’Arabe” instead of “Sirop d’érable.” Arab sirup instead of maple sirup. Again, the shock of it got me and I CACKLED before I, wide-eyed, clamped my hands over my mouth and I definitely do not deserve the forgiveness she eventually extended me, after being very rightfully hurt.
My bigger regret is not studying English Lit in University. I was trying to pragmatic. I didn’t want to get a degree in something that I couldn’t very easily get a job with. I didn’t want to be an English teacher (though I low-key fantasize about being a high school English teacher sometimes) and I didn’t think I was smart enough to be an editor of some kind. More importantly, I’m not detail oriented enough to re-read something multiple times and not zone out and want it to be over. I certainly can take a red pen to something and say when they don’t make sense, but I also sent an email to 20,000 people with a major error in the subject line so you know… details. Not my thing. I’ve asked my boss on numerous occasions if he regrets not asking me “Are you detail oriented” in my job interview, but I have yet to be fired. Yet.
When I talk about regretting not studying English LIt, though, I also know that I ended up studying something that mattered to me and very much shaped who I am today, as well as the trajectory of my life. I believe too much in Providence to allow regret to eat at me. The part that I can, with confidence, say I regret is the way that I spoke to myself and what I believed about myself. Again, I thought I was being pragmatic, realistic, when I was “honest” with my self about not being “smart enough.” But, looking back, I think I was afraid (or lower-middle-class) to throw caution to the wind and really “follow my bliss.”
A few months ago as I was thinking through next steps for my Masters, trying to decide what direction I would move in, I found myself in the same line of thinking. When I was trying to decide between Theology or Church History or Chaplaincy, I realized that somewhere along the line, I had built a narrative that I wasn’t smart enough to study Theology. Theology was for brilliant people. It’s so complex and nuanced. I’m fairly sure ‘nuanced’ would not be one of the first words that people would use to describe me!!! At least at face value. But when I caught myself telling myself that same story — “you’re not smart enough to do this” — I decided to do what comes most naturally in the world to me: I’LL SHOW YOU. [enter Spiderman pointing at each other meme]. If I’ve followed through on anything cool or worthwhile, it’s likely because of I’LL SHOW YOU energy.
So I decided to do what 20 year old Jess didn’t have the gumption/self-kindness/whatever it was to do to choose English, and I enrolled in the Masters of Arts in Theology with the intent to explore Theological Anthropology. Take that mean self.
As tomorrow approaches, I feel a bit like I did on the eve of my wedding. I’m nervous, I’m excited, I have a whole lot of unknowns ahead of me. And to be honest, as cheesy or lame or weird as it sounds, I kind of feel like tomorrow is the day I get to say yes to me. Yes to the next forty years living out all the things I’ve learned to be in the last forty. Forty years of being kind to myself and others, of believing that God designed me to be the way I am (ADHD and all) for a reason, of standing as tall as my terrible posture will allow and living wide, and tall, and unashamedly, while still growing in humility, bravery, and wisdom.
Here’s to the next 40.
