Goodbye to my 30s

Today is the last day of my thirties. Tomorrow I start a new decade as a forty-something. And you know something? I’m really okay with it. I’m feeling pretty happy to be hitting this milestone and starting the second half of my life.

Well, you know, mostly.

I’m saying goodbye to the best decade of my life so far. I met and married my husband, gave birth to the two most exceptional people I’ve ever met, began my career as a writer, came to terms with some truths about myself that I’d been denying. (“Well, all right then, I guess these really are my hips.”) I learned to stop pretending to be something I’m not and how to be a better friend. It’s taken me almost forty years to begin to think that maybe, just maybe, if I met myself at a party, I might like me.

My thirties have been a gentle revelation of some of the realities of aging. The lines on my face weren’t there at the beginning of this decade but they did arrive bringing some wisdom with them. Not a huge amount, but enough for me to be able to recognize the deep expansive happiness I feel somewhere behind my sternum. It colors everything –all those little petty annoyances that used to derail my whole day now just seem like a big joke. I said once to my friend Tiffany that my life is like a B-movie and she said, “I like to think of it as a comic novel.” She’s right. Life is mostly hilarious, especially MY life. I’m so grateful for that laughter.

So, in the interests of documenting the lessons I have learned in the past four decades, I’ve been compiling a list. Here are some highlights:

I've learned that the world looks brighter and I have a lot more patience after a snack. In fact, every aspect of my life needs a small injection of fuel every once in a while. I need a little alone time, a little romance, a little humor, a little sleep, a little food, a little time with my girlfriends, a little exercise, and a little time to cuddle with Jane Cooper (4), who is the warmest, cuddliest, softest kitten for about twenty minutes a day before she turns back into a hell cat. If I have too much or too little of these things, I get funky and unbalanced and have a tendency to burst into tears in my closet because I can’t find anything to wear and life is so ha-a--aard.

I've learned to ask for help when I need it. This is such a hard lesson and one I’ve had to learn again and again. I don’t know why it’s so tough to ask –whether it’s because it then makes me feel like I’m defective in some way or whether it’s just that I don’t want to bother people or what, but it is darn hard to ask. And yet, through asking for help, I’ve had some truly amazing experiences and met some friends on a level deeper than any we’d reached before. When I wrote about my struggle with depression, I received such an outpouring of support and genuine kindness that I now view that struggle as one of the best things that ever happened to me. Out of that dark time, I made some of the best friends of my life.

I’ve learned the power of authentic friendship with women. I know that I am late to this realization –most of my girlfriends have known this a lot longer. I think I was always a bit afraid that I couldn’t be a good girlfriend because I can’t seem to do all of those niceties that everyone else seems to do so effortlessly --like sending cards and remembering my friends’ and their kids’ birthdays and ages, etc.. My brain doesn’t seem to be able to keep that kind of information. (On the other hand, I can usually dredge up completely useless information like where my friends went to high school or where they shop for shoes.) I’m reading a book right now called, “Girls Night Out” which focuses on the powerful connections between women in women’s groups. It’s a lovely, inspirational book about the power of female friendships and it really made me look at how important my girlfriends have become in my life. Tomorrow, on the first day of my forties, I’m going to have a party with most of the women who have become so important to me over the last decade, at least most of the ones who live here in Austin. It’s going to be fantastic.

I’ve learned that if the world were more childlike, we’d all be better for it. Children come into this world already knowing that the boxes that toys come in are sometimes better than the toys themselves, that naps should be taken every day, that creative outlets are necessary on a regular basis, and that the only way to love and be loved is unconditionally. My kids have taught me so much about what’s really important and what’s just plain stupid. If you want to know how inane something is, try explaining it to the grave, innocent face of a four-year-old. When Ana (now almost seven) was four, I tried to explain racism to her. She thought I was LYING! She looked at me in horror and I could just see her wondering what kind of a mind could think up such a thing. “Separate water fountains!? Back of the bus?! You’re MAKING IT UP!” This week she told me that she’d learned that women couldn’t participate in the very first Olympics and that in Shakespeare’s time women weren’t allowed to act on stage. When I told her that women couldn’t even vote until 1920 in this country, she was appalled but seemed very hopeful that inequality had been resolved by now. (May she never think differently.)

I’ve learned that being happily married is a LOT better than the alternative. I’m not going to get all mushy here, but my husband, in addition to adding a significant amount of chaos to my life (more in the next column about the puppy he brought home) also adds more than half of the fun. I really, really like him. He makes me happy to get up every day and see what new adventures await us.

Okay, so it’s only a partial list but the general theme seems to be that it’s important to notice one’s blessings and it’s important to laugh and love and connect with other people. I know that most people wouldn’t have taken forty years to learn these things but they seem like great lessons to have learned, no matter when we learn them. So, I’m really feeling pretty good about tomorrow.

Well, you know, mostly.

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Barbara Cooper (39 for 24 more hours!) is the mother of Ana (6.75) and Jane (4). She lives in Austin, Texas and dedicates this columns to her good cyber girlfriends around the globe –particularly Kathy in Canada, Kathy in Pennsylvania, Linda in Indianapolis and Tiffany in Illinois.

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