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Busted

I got busted recently. Someone called me out.

Naturally, I wanted to deny and tell them to just shush the heck up. I have this weird knee jerk reaction when somebody unexpectedly calls me out. Immediately, the urge to respond with a loud and insistent “NOOOO” takes over. Although, if what I am getting busted for is accurate, the NO isn’t all that firm. It is the kind of NO that resembles that of a kardashian-esque girl who is unsure of her answer. The kind of nooooo that raises in inflection at the end sounding less like a declaration and more like a question. Only to be finished with “pfff” sort of wanna-be giggle. Making it way too clear that no matter how loud and insistent I try to sound, doubt is creeping in with each passing second.

Making matters worse, it was my own mother calling me out. I know, right?!

We were hanging in my sister’s kitchen. I was with my sisters, some aunts and cousins, and my mother. As usual, this time spent cleaning up in the kitchen after a family party, was where the good stuff happens. This is when we seem to tell the most stories, laugh the hardest, and be the real-est. I was in it. All the good stuff. I was in the stories, the laughing and the real-ness. When all of a sudden my mother stopped in her dish washing tracks, put the sponge down, turned around and asked, “What is up with that?!”

She was talking to me. Looking right at me. So…..I stopped in my dish drying tracks and asked, and looked back at her with wide eyes. I think I even gave a "Whaatttt?" The kind of what you only give your mom.

She said, “You keep talking about being too old??? I have heard you put yourself down way too many times to count tonight. WHAT is up with that?!”

Honestly, I don’t even know if my knee jerk “NOOOoooo??” response was even audible. It only took like ½ a millisecond for me to let these words hit and bounce off my gut.

She was calling me out. AND….she was right.

I was busted.

I was/am feeling old and it is freaking me out…….and I don't know what to do with all those new, strange, awkward, big, farty feelings………and so it was coming out passive aggressively……and sarcasm is my go to…….and now my mom was calling me out……and I wanted to tell her to shush…..I mean, mom c’mon, sarcasm? this is our language lady!.......and now it’s out there and…………..now I have to deal………ahhhhh!!!

Not only was I busted for putting myself down and trying to cover it up with quick and wannabe witty sarcasm but apparently, I was also completely transparent. How utterly un-cool yet vulnerably great of me.

Since the bust, I have been thinking a lot. I have never cared about my age before. But THIS! This number, this year, this new phase, this change….THIS I care about.

Why do I care so much when I have never cared before?

There is the obvious stuff that I am wearing all over my face. Literally. My face is turning 40 too and it’s totally ok with it. Letting all it’s almost 40 self hang out there for the world to see. The body being close behind. Too close for comfort actually. I refuse to fall into some sort of massive sob story about my tired boobs or multiplying grey hairs but…….let’s at least not pretend that this isn’t a big deal.

It’s a big deal people.

My body is turning 40 and I am not so sure the rest of me is ready for that.

I mean, this isn’t where I thought I’d be at 40. I thought 40 would look different. I thought 40 would feel different. I thought, at 40, I would BE different.

When I was about 16, I came home from high school in the middle of one of those massive dramatic 16-year-old moments. I don’t even remember if it was a boyfriend thing or a friend thing or whatever. I do, however, remember that my mom was there for me when I got home. She listened as I cried and got all dramatic about my 16 year old life. Then she said words that have come back to haunt me. In a beautiful but still haunting way. She said, “Oh Bec, I know. I still remember feeling like that. I remember it so well. I mean, I sometimes still feel like I am 16. Really. Sometimes I look in the mirror expecting to see my younger self and my face shocks me. I don’t even know how I got here, to this age. But I can tell you that you are going to be ok. This will pass. 16 passes. Life keeps moving, it gets better and you will be ok.”

She was gently letting me know, I had so very much left to learn.

All I remember thinking was, “Oh lady. Are you serious? You are SO not 16!! You lady? are old. You have NO idea how this feels. You are a mom. Your life is set. You have no more questions. You are done. You have nothing more to worry about.”

Oh good GOD. How very naïve and stupidly cute of me.

First, let’s just talk about the fact that when my mother was giving me this profoundly haunting speech………she was all of 37! So yeah, 3 whole years before she turned 40. She was a freaking baby.

Oh mom. Mom, mom, mom! I get it. I hear you woman and I get IT. I feel like that drama queen of a 16 year old I was, was only, like……yesterday.

I still remember what it felt like.

Those heart pumping and gut stirring feelings that go hand and hand with dreams and desires. Remember those? The ones that you’d stay awake late at night talking to friends or boyfriends about, the ones you feverishly wrote in your beloved teen angst diary, the ones that could have you joyfully jumping up and down on the bed one minute and crying on that same bed, head under the covers the next. The dreams and desires I thought were saved only for the young, naïve and stupidly cute people??

Well, my mom, the one I thought was, what I so eloquently put as “done” and the same one that busted me, she is showing me, again, how much I have left to learn.

My mother, along with my father, is embarking on an adventure of a lifetime. Check it out here. At 60 years old. That’s right. She is having one of those heart pumping, gut stirring, stay up late at night, write in journal, jump on the bed, shed some cleansing tears sort of adventure. Guess she’s not “done” huh?

See, all my turning forty turmoil has been over this overwhelming feeling of….not yet. Meaning I am just not ready to be “done”. That stupidly, not so cute anymore, belief had peeked its way out and started waving it’s hands in my vulnerable sub conscience.

All those dreams I had put off for someday. All those new things I would someday get to trying. All those many places I would get to go to someday. Those not so cool habits I would someday give up and those good for me new ones I’d finally pick up. Those conversations I would be brave enough for, the risks I would build the courage for, the leaps I would take, the bolder, louder, bigger…….the certainties I would someday embrace…….

They all suddenly were staring back at me. No longer far off. It’s like by nearing that forty corner I had started emitting some dream, wish and yearning scent. Calling them all in one by one until they are all just standing there, looking me in the eye and saying, “Well?? Are you for real or not? Are we yours or not? How bad do you want this? How much faith do you really have?”

At the same time I am also getting hit with major awarenesses. My almost 40 life.....well, may not look like I had envisoned it but damn, it's beautiful. Dreams have come true. They've been amazing and messy and much MORE or everything I never saw coming.

How easy it would be for me to claim mid-life crisis and then go bungee jumping or something. Anything to make me feel that newness. That living on the edge, I'm so alive feeling.

Yet, I actually have paid enough attention in these almost forty years. God has stirred my life enough through out it all. I've hit enough bottoms. I understand that living on the edge can be as simple yet difficult as being honest. The kind of truth telling that feels like you're not going to make it through that next sentence only to find a floating through the open sky sort of relief to follow. Who needs bungee jumping?

Today, my almost 40 dreams look different then they used to. Sure, some are just constants. I still want to go to Africa, write a book, and meet Oprah. But, then there are those dreams that have grown up. The deep desires that could only come from living through all the stupidity of my twenties and intense research of my thirties. The ones that God and I have been growing together for a long time and that make me close my eyes, take a deep breath, and smile when I think of them. The best kind of dreaming.

This is where I am at today. Sitting here with a magnificently gorgeous and incredibly terrifying crap load of dreams and realizations staring me down.

Busted.

Hence me being here. Every time I post on this blog, I’m scared. This stuff is scar-ey. It’s this awkwardly vulnerable risk taking exciting life living stuff and the just as scary intimate vulnerable relational surrendered to a wonderful God stuff. That is what I am here to do.

Here I am, committing to myself to write. Use my voice. My almost forty God loving voice. Screw waiting for certainty. This is where I step up to live like a bad ass, who cares what age I am, women who refuses to wait to feel joy. God is offering it to me now. I'm in.

Today seems fitting. Exactly three months to the big day. I love the number three. It plays out in my life in so many ways. Feels super significant. So.....I am going to take the next three months on this blog to dig deeper, get real-er, dream bigger.....all that jazz. The count down begins today. My only intention, to turn 40 as me. Letting go of expectations, open to learning, and living deep and wide.

And..........Here’s to my ass busting, feeling like 16, screw age, risk taking, learning as she lives mom. Thank you mom.


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