My birthday is tomorrow, really, but I’ll be a bit too busy for reflection. I’ll be spending the day celebrating one of my dearest friends, instead of myself. It was the best day to schedul her bridal shower and bachelorette outing, and I don’t mind that a bit. What better way to spend my birthday than in celebration of love and happiness with friends? (Speaking of which… anybody in the Fresno area know of GOOD places for a group of 30-something women to go out for drinking and dancing and parading around a bride-to-be for the edification and merriment of all?)

But as I said, there will be little time for reflection and introspection tomorrow, sooo… I’ll take care of that today.

Not that it’s a chore. I tend toward the reflective and introspective (and introverted as well) a bit too much. I think it has something to do with the many defense mechanisms I’ve developed over the past 37 years, some of which I’m trying to shed.

So WHERE am I at 37?

I find myself newly single (ish), having very definitively separated from my husband of nearly 15 years, with divorce paperwork in the works. Is this where I thought I would be? No. Is this where I would have wanted to be? No. No one wants to look at an important relationship and plan for it to ‘fail’.

I did get some amazing things out of it.

I have the BEST kid ever. I may be biased. In fact, I am most certainly biased, but I swear I have never met a child as wonderful. How can she not be? She’s MY kid, and his as well. We’re both wonderful people. There’s just no way we could have produced rotten spawn.

I have some really precious memories. You don’t spend 18 years of your life (nearly half my life, to date) with a person and not have heart-wrenching, ecstatic, overwhelming, wonderful, wonderful moments. We had many. I’m so grateful for them. I cherish them.

That’s the thing. He’s an amazing person. (I still think so.) I’m an amazing person. Just… somewhere along the line we stopped being amazing for one another, and could not find our way to a mutual path that would return us to that connection and communication. Our paths have definitely gone off in different directions.

At 37 I am mourning the loss of a true life partner; a good, loyal, kind, loving, intelligent, supportive life partner. It’s downright frightening to face the expansive landscape of life before me without that dependable backup; without knowing there’s someone there that I can turn to if I stumble. This is it. I’m on my own.

So, at 37, I begin a solitary journey. (A first for me.) There’s always been someone to hold my hand. Until this time, there has always been someone on whom I could depend. I always had a place to stay, food to eat, someone to take care of things if I couldn’t.

Now… it’s just me. And I have to be a success as a human, because I can’t stand the idea of presenting anything less than a good example for my daughter. There isn’t any room for despair. I don’t have the luxury of ‘giving up’ and letting things go to hell. I’m responsible for more than just me, and I take responsibility of that kind very seriously.

It’s a new beginning, of sorts, so there is also the excitement and anticipation of the unknown. I really CAN start fresh and new. I have the license, now, to revamp my existence. I can change my routines. I can decide what I want and go in that direction. I still have to think of what’s best for my kid, but aside from that, I can do as I please. It’s liberating. (If there’s anything I dislike, it’s not having my liberty.)

So here I am, in school, a student at 37, making an effort to keep up with the 20-somethings that surround me with their quick minds and uncluttered life-experience. I’ll need to support myself. I’ll need to make extra money on the side. (Anybody wanna hire a bellydancer? Buy vitamins? Buy soap? Buy beauty products? Goji berry juice? I can hook ya up with all of those… and probably a few other things, if I think about it…) I’ll need to find balance between work (the work of self-sustenance) and play.

37. It’s funny. When I was younger I never even really contemplated what life would or should be like at age 37. I mean, I looked at my late teens and early twenties and had expectations for them (which never materialized), then my mid to late twenties (those happened – marriage, kid, etc…), but I never looked beyond that. I figured I would have chosen that heading and just keep sailing on, off into the sunset. Or something. It was as though once I achieved those things, I would cease to exist as an individual, and simply fulfill a role.

I suppose I forgot that I’m not very good at fulfilling roles and conforming to expectations just because they’re there. In fact, I’m really quite bad at it. Terrible, to be honest.

Now I’m here, I realize that there’s WAY more out there for me to experience and test and learn and watch and enjoy. My mind is more open now than it was when I was a kid. I’m more willing and ready to learn about everything. I find more wonder in my surroundings.

I’m more appreciative of the blue of the sky, the way the clouds drift, fly, or roll across it, depending on the mood of the weather. Flowers are no longer just pretty. They’re beautiful as buds of anticipated potential, they’re astonishing as their petals unfurl and explode in blossom, and they’re absolutely exquisite as they fade, petals drying, withering, and falling to leave the fragile architecture that once held and supported so much vibrance.

There’s just so much to see if you open your eyes. I don’t just mean the eyes that drink in the images the light reveals when it bounces off of objects. I also mean the eyes in your mind and heart; the sight that allows us to assess and understand, the vision that allows us to embrace and care.

For so many years I hated people. I didn’t understand them, and they certainly did not understand me, so I just wouldn’t bother to try. I couldn’t afford to care because I would always be disappointed. Now I’m beginning to see that caring doesn’t have to be a disappointment. So now I care. I still won’t let anyone take advantage of me, but I can offer them my good will. That’s a definitely switch. Everyone has my good will, until they earn something else. (And it MUST be earned. I don’t just give away anything beyond good will.) They may earn my trust. They may earn my respect. They may earn my love. They may earn my disgust. They may earn my disappointment. In a few cases, they may even earn my wrath, but it takes a lot. Thankfully. (Wrathful Joy is not a nice person at all.)

At least now I’m learning to be a little less critical of others, and I’m still struggling with being less critical of myself. My standards have always been very high. Nothing wrong with that. Only now, after so many years, I’m seeing that there’s also nothing wrong with being human, and falling short of those standards. As long as we’re trying, in some way, to progress and be better. Not everyone sees things as I do. Not everyone has experienced my perspective, nor I theirs. So now I can cut us all a little slack and choose my battles. Life is so much less stressful when you aren’t constantly trying to maintain a rigid worldview into which everything must fall perfectly. That’s exhausting, and consistently disappointing, because the universe just refuses to fall into that rigid little frame.

37. Or… 29 for the 9th time.

Honoring what has gone before. Bursting with potential for what is to come.

Let’s see what happens on the way to 38.

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