Neptune Lines and Fine Lines: Hello 40

I shared so much more than I planned. And yet, I have so much more to say that I also chose not to share. That feels like 40.

I am 40. I turned 40 yesterday and I do feel 40 as I write this to you. There are fine lines on my face from laughing and crying and cringing and living. My hamstrings are like, stretch b*tch or else - and they mean it. And there is wisdom interweaving in my bone marrow from experience, yes and even more-so, experiences starting to connect dots in my life that feel almost magic. And I will say I am calling in the weird and magic in my 40s as I live under my Neptune line here in Maine.

Ten years and one day ago, on the morning of my 30th birthday, I woke up in a tiny and super eccentric apartment in Venice Beach. Our bed was on stilts and we had 2 surfboards hung on the wall like a makeshift headboard, one was a foam board and the other a yellow longboard borrowed from a friend. We would remove them and place the boards atop our Prius early mornings to surf in Malibu - before I sound too surfer cool, we only did it a handful of times before moving to Colorado. That birthday, Chris proposed and wow a lot can happen after one ‘yes’.

As I reflect back, some learnings to land my 30s in words are:

1. Some people I speak to (still) tell me that engagements or even weddings don’t change their relationship. They tell me that they are already living with the person, it is the same. I wholeheartedly did not feel that way and do not feel that way. When Chris proposed, our future changed. When we got married, our future changed again. I like when dramatic acts enter the scenes of our lives and change the course. And I also like if it has magic in it. I know we like control and things staying the same as humans - but dare I say lean into the romance and drama of it all.

2. My friend Cait told me that she sees angels in the form of feathers. I said, ‘I’ll try it’. And I did start seeing feathers all the time - so many bird feathers on sidewalks and then random feathers in hats or on a dreamcatcher in random store. I asked one Fall morning when it would be a good time to take steps to our dream of moving to Colorado? That very afternoon, I came home and our brindle puppy had eaten our comforter. It was a goose down comforter and there were teeny tiny feathers all over the apartment. Chris and I left California for Colorado that very Winter. I still wonder if there are signs everywhere or if we go looking for what we already know….

3. The day Chris and I got married it was really, really windy. We were meant to get married outside - of course in my mind with a bluebird Colorado sky and the mountain backdrop - but it started to drizzle and the sky was all grey and the clouds blocked the scene. And those mountain winds were doing their thing. We kept pushing the time but I distinctly remember Chris telling me - I cannot remember if it was via text or telepathic now - but he said I still want to marry you in this exact weather. And we walked outside in the wind and got married. And so many actual and metaphorical winds have rolled through our lives this past decade, we keep choosing one another still.

4. Right before my 30th birthday, I left my corporate career at lululemon to start my own business as a coach and facilitator. And just a touch later, co-launched a yoga retreat business called ‘Rock Your Bliss’ with my best friend. There will be years in your life where you launch - those are your launch years. And I learned along the way, others are less launch-y. The ebb and flow has been hard for me to allow, this is still my work.

5. I spoke on many stages in my 30s decade. I took a yoga class at Gold’s Gym - the Arnold Schwarzenegger gym and all the muscle heads - the class was me and one other person while everyone else pumped iron. With her perfectly curled hair swept in a ponytail and zero crystal ball or even a crystal, for that matter, she told me that she saw me speaking but without the big red lululemon logo behind me. As I was raised in a Greek school in my youth, was this a prophecy in the middle of all places, Gold’s Gym? She was right and until recently, I never knew my speaking style and how I hold an audience was and is a form of my artistry. And it is and I am … an artist. So are you.

6. I had my first child at 32. Chris caught her into this World and that was one of the hardest and most incredible things my body has ever done. And our daughter’s tiny little body in my arms, I said I love you within moments of touching her, I said it over and over again. Moments that I love you just pours out of my mouth with no caution, no armor, no guards up - they are few and I am looking to allow more as I navigate my own armor and putting my whole self in places and spaces I can allow the love to bubble up and over and out.

7. Four days after my delivery, I was back at the hospital with what is called a postpartum hemorrhage. One of the scarier days of my entire life thus far. My lesson was when the veil is thin, you will know things you cannot access at full veil and to listen and trust.

8. Drink more water. Full stop.

9. Take all the photos. Be it on your phone, a polaroid or a professional photographer, snap them all. I love a scroll down memory lane in my photo albums and the coolest thing happens, photos of myself I used to hate or be so critical, I now love. I say look at you there, so tired or so in love or so happy or nature-y and I remember to soften. Even if it feels too late, there is no such thing as too late when it comes to loving all the versions of yourself.

10. In every poll ever posted when people ask if you are a sunrise person or a sunset person, I would click the sunset option. Especially how the sun sets into the ocean, when it kisses the horizon and then dips below the water’s edge, wow. And I got up recently as the sun rose out past my front door in a place I never knew I would live in a life without my Grandmother, which I guessed I had never considered a real possibility, and there I was, different. Or is the word, evolved? Transformed? The word is surprised as I started to fall in love with a sunrise. I was and still am so surprised by the way I live lately. All of my 20s was about getting to know myself and my preferences and trying to pry apart the iron-clad grasp and grip of people pleasing. And then my 30s felt like loving the shadow side, all the stuff I was trying to stuff down and hide in my 20s was reaching out a hand for me to hold. And now, it seems it is all about knowing who I am so well that I can be surprised and not totally freak out when I change because I am still holding my hand and not letting go.

11. Failure is not a bad thing. And I know this all too well and it takes so much practice and mental stealth and agility to remember that failure is not a bad thing. It is information. It is learning. It is the path when it splits. It is palpable. Failure is not my identity when it happens and after it happens or right before it was about to happen. It just happens. It happened. It will happen again. And I (hopefully) take the time to learn and try again. Because that is what we are all all doing, failing and trying and failing and trying with some success in there, too. All of our days.

12. I had my second child at 35. A totally different birth experience. So fast, lightning fast. And our whole lives seemed to change lightning fast going from one child to two. I won’t lie, that transition was really hard. And we felt like failures….a lot. I have never been so exhausted. Ever. And I have never been so loved. I know all my children love me but that second child, I am currently her sun, moon and stars and like I said, I have never been so loved so out loud. And that is something. It is everything.

13. Celebrate more. Celebrate all of it. Yes the birthdays but I love celebrating on the days that aren’t necessarily meant to be a huge hoopla. A random Tuesday, get a cake and light a candle, why not? Because I talk to too many people that haven’t celebrated their successes and I wonder, how do we then know what success even feels like?

14. Fall in love with an animal. A cat, a dog, a bird or hedgehog. It matters.

15. Write. Write. Write. If you are able, pen to paper is so different than the tap tap tapping on this screen. I am not going to sit here and wax poetic that I write every morning or every evening in a journal. I do not. I am, however, currently in a writing circle for 8 weeks and while I have to pay someone to tell me to write pen to paper, it is worth every cent.

16. Find your exact birth time and get your astrology chart read. I am an Aquarius sun, Cancer moon, Sagittarius rising. You don’t even have to fully believe in astrology (at all) and it will stretch your mind beyond the every day and I am here for mental stretching.

17. Emotional reading has been so fun for me. I have been asking myself (and my children), how do you feel when reading this book? I don’t know if anyone ever asked me that question…ever. I always read for comprehension and to get a good grade on my pop quiz or to create / answer book club questions. Reading to feel? If you thought I loved books before …. watch out.

18. I think there are cocoon years, too. Where you are going through so much change, you have to snuggle in and rest more and go dark and fully turn into goo and then start to put your shit back together a different way. I had quite a few cocoon years in my 30s, strung together and stand alone years. Some years it was just me in the cocoon, other years my husband and the girls where in the cocoon, too. Looking back, I don’t think I could grasp the cocoon idea and I think I ultimately made myself wrong for it. I think in my 50s I will have more insight here, today I am seated in the awareness and tenderness that I made myself wrong when I was actually not wrong at all, I was just … goo.

19. Get yourself a library card. Libraries hold layers of communities within them and they make me believe in humanity again and again.

20. I am reading a book about an octopus and I am in awe of the intelligence. And yes, I saw My Octopus Teacher already, again, in major awe. And yet, our human bodies are so incredibly intelligent and I wonder why I feel so enamored with an octopus and not my own bodily function and how it heals or tells me something is off or built and birthed three children. As I step into 40, I hope to never again underestimate the beautiful symmetry and symphony of say, a consistent bowl movement and the intricate communication system that is my being, my body. And I hope for all people, they have a great relationship with their poop schedule, too.

21. If you have read my writing or know me personally, you know the loss of my Grandmother was almost Earth-shattering for me, my own inner Earth. I have learned so much about myself, my edges, my grief and even my joy. And while she is gone in the human form, I see her all the time and I live differently now. Grief is inescapable and we can grieve together, make room for one another at the tenderness table.

22. Take a one day break from your phone at least once a month - put it in a drawer or a lock box and give someone else the key. A three day break is monumental but let’s start where we can, right? Before I started reading all the fiction, I got really into it with self help books about the brain and dopamine and comparison and the importance of human connection. The screen breaks are…imperative.

23. Get a hobby. Do something, anything that you are not getting paid to do. See what happens.

24. Our third child arrived at age 38 and she took her sweet ass time - even skipping an entire zodiac sign and jumping to the next one she was so late past her ‘due date’. Oh the juxtaposition of my third daughter and the deep sadness I was feeling around the loss of my Grandmother and then the joy of getting pregnant a month later. She calls me mommy-honey and is obsessed with Chris, she only allows him to put her to bed at night. While I thought she would be wise and serene, she is actually fire-y, demanding and so loud. She makes me realize I am ready for fire and loud again within myself and she teaches me how.

25. So now that I have been alive 40 years, with time layering I start to see details intertwining. And it is really, really subtle. Not in your face or a huge gesture. One time my friend had me and two friends over during the holidays and she made cupcakes and she actually scraped a tiny vanilla bean into shavings that she then made into a garnish atop the buttercream icing and it really mattered. I was in my 20s at the time and didn’t even own a ladle so when she explained it, I was in shock. And now, I so get it. And life feels like that lately. The tiny extra effort you made that one time without even knowing why, it has made a ripple years later in life.

26. This is for the women specifically, I really zoned out in the classes where we learned about our bodies. Anatomy, human sexuality, puberty, menstrual cycles, and menopause - I did not pay any attention *hand over head motion. And now I am really interested and feel the knowledge about our bodies is empowering and creates choice. I actually wonder if the women who taught me the lessons were zoned out, too. Get curious about this human suit we wear, start with an armpit or how your cycles are 28(ish) days and man’s cycle is 24 hours. Get in awe with your body because they are incredible how they heal and rest and activate.

27. Keep believing in love. And if you can’t, let someone else remind you. Romance novels have a grip on book sales, I am talking 51% of books sales, folks. How curious.

28. Send snail mail. The tricky thing about snail mail is people will get the mail and they won’t tell you they received it. So you really get to explore your need for validation here or if you are okay sending love with a stamp and letting it ripple the exact way it ripples.

29. Let your heart break. With sadness.

30. Let your heart break. With joy.

31. Be brave enough to know when a friendship has run its course and set it free. Especially when subtraction means addition.

32. Brené Brown has said every way to Sunday and on every platform that ‘Clear is kind’. I want to be known to my beloved Chris, to my children, to my friends and acquaintances as someone who cared about the words she spoke. I want to keep getting clearer and clearer because communication is key - and this is how I talk to myself AND to another.

33. Say I love you. So much more. I used to save it up so it wouldn’t lose its meaning. And then I realized, when love loses its meaning….so have I.

34. I cannot stop thinking about the saying “those who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones”. And I really realize anything and anyone I am judging out there is because I am judging myself so hard in here. Damn. Never boring being human, huh?

35. Get weirder. Find the people and places you feel free and go there more. Visit, snuggle, laugh, yell, cry, paint…hell, move there.

36. Have a vision for your life. Have 8 visions, even. The key is to then be so interested in all the ways it can come to life, not just one way. Tunnel vision will be the demise of your dreams, look up and look around. Of course, you can have an idea or a plan of how it can happen and 97% of the time, it will most likely go a different way and how divine, you still get to where you are going.

37. I am learning about armor, the protective layers we place around us for survival or protection and safety. I know every self help book speak to where you can put your armor down - I mentioned it above, too, actually. Good to know with whom and where you can lay it all down. AND, I am wondering if I can have different version of armor? Steel armor. An armor made of oak tree. Then an armor made of cotton candy. What if it is not about completely raw dogging it but more of choosing your armor like you choose an outfit? I like this thought as another option to exploring existence.

38. Speaking of armor, I am in love with people who have boundaries. People who say ‘no’ without an explanation. People who say ‘I don’t agree and that is okay’. Oh how I love people with preferences. They feel like standing next to an old ship anchor, solid. I am becoming one of these people.

39. Life is not all doors all the time, honor the hallways. You know what I mean.

40. Next time you go the library or a bookstore, please see what happens when you stop for a whole 5 minutes in the poetry section and peruse. Just open different books and see what you land on. I find my preferences are so accessible here in poetry. I love the likes of Andrea Gibson, Rainer Maria Rilke, Mary Oliver, Ada Limón, Rupi Kaur, Kate Bowler, Atticus, Maya Angelou and Emory Hall. Find your poets. Sooner than later.

41. Your rituals do not, I repeat do not have to be right when you wake up or before bed. Do your rituals whenever and however you want.

42. My little sister had a baby and I flew to her to care for her and her husband and her newborn son. I cooked soups. I vacuumed. I thought about her needs endlessly and how she likes her house to look and feel and be so she could be so cozy in her new life while healing and loving her son and her expanded family life. I felt so beautifully connected to her in ways of service. Caregiving is to be human. I always hear people losing themselves in caregiving for others and I do understand that (hello motherhood) - and I hear less about how we can find ourselves there, too. A thought.

43. I have not shaved my legs above the knee in….years. It is too much work. Something sneaky about leg hair is that it get really soft but you have to go the distance to get past the prickle. Life lessons, am I right?

44. Make friends with your comfort zone. And if you know anything about real friendships, the ones that make it through iterations of selves - those friends deeply trust that you will leave, shake it up, change a bit and if meant to stick it out in this life, you will come back. The comfort zones know you have to leave, go beyond the great cozy and you will come back when you need to. Is it you or them holding on too tight?

45. Pay attention to what makes you cringe, I bet there is something there for you to reflect on right about now. All hail the cringe.

46. I am looking around my makeshift office here and I have art taped up on the wall from the kids. There is a snowman smiling at me, as is a 6 legged unicorn and a self portrait with a smile that even has teeth and a tongue. I see a butterfly that is Santa Claus, a Santa Claus butterfly who is smiling and a fairy flying over ocean waves with her eyes closed and smiling. Oh look, there is pre-butterfly Santa, the Santa Claus caterpillar. There is something about smiling that I am curious about and the dopamine release and what happens if you fake smile, does your brain know the difference? My best friend asked me once a handful of years ago why I don’t smile in photos anymore, just this soft smile thing. I said to her, ‘when I have something to smile about I will’ in the snarkiest snark. I was navigating some deep grief at the time and my child actually wrote a song called “Sad Mommy”. She has not sang that song in a while and when people asked me how I was doing yesterday with a happy birthday note I actually surprised myself and wrote, I am happy. And I am. Even amidst the shit show *gestures to all that is going on

    out there in the World, I am happy right now. And I am smiling with teeth.

    Hello 40s.

    ---

I did not plan to keep writing, I thought I would stop around the number 16 … look at that, 40ish things to share. I just kept writing and here we are. Here I am. 40 years and a day old. I live in Maine and I am happy. Letting myself hear these notes and those words, I am happy, drop in my body like an anchor. And I take a deep inhale and then, I exhale.

Cheers to all that was, including me.

Cheers to today, the right now.

And cheers to all that will be, including the me I have not met yet.