At Home With Myself

46th Birthday Talk

I turn 46 today. For a person who has felt comfortable with, accepting of, and at home with myself ever since I knew to use those words to tell people who and how I was, a good way to describe how much I’m enjoying this beyond middle age time in life is in terms of home.

Imagine I’ve redone my living spaces and pulled in everything I’ve loved about my life so far. It’s an eclectic space specifically suited to me. It’s not for everyone, but neither am I. It feels familiar yet fresh because I’ve rearranged and reprioritized things. It also feels weirdly like I got a free upgrade even though nothing is new new. 

I’ve got a lot of mirrors in here because mirrors reflect light and all the different angles of everything and everyone. I like to see things from all angles. I don’t mind the way the starkness of my more black and white years has faded to shades of gray or how some of the edges I purposefully kept sharp have rounded out.

My reflection is in the mirrors, of course - and while I can see aging, I neither obsess over or avoid my appearance. Around here we expect women to age and we accept all the ways in which they do it. I do consider appearance the least interesting thing about me and always have.

My body has been a great home for me and I do the upkeep and adjust what I expect from it as we continue on together. It is not 18 or 25 or 30 so I don’t expect it to look or act those ages and that helps us get along just fine. My focus on mental, physical, and spiritual health and wellness is an enabling project to keep me going as I age, not an endless effort to recapture the 18 year old version of me who I have no interest in looking like again despite the signals society sends all aging women urging us to chase youth in appearance as if it boosts our validity, worth, or relevance. It doesn’t. 

Many people don’t get the privilege of aging. I’m not guaranteed tomorrow. The one thing most of us get wrong for much of the time we’re here is time itself. We always think we have more of it. Time we enjoy wasting is not wasted time, but wasting time on visible signs of physical aging is...not for me. Worrying over cellulite or neck skin is not on my list of ways I enjoy wasting time.

You can’t remodel spaces without narrowing down what should be in them. 

The purging I’ve done my whole life is being fierce with myself and my behaviors and tendencies. I’ve weeded out and worked on the ones that aren’t great, and I’m still doing that because we are always a work in progress toward being a good human until the day we die. 

The beyond middle age remodel required a different sort of purging. Examining behaviors, rituals, traditions, things that I was doing simply because I had once enjoyed or benefitted from them. And somehow they became something I did or was associated with or that others got used to me doing since I kept doing them, because it came naturally or it was easy or whatever.

You can’t have room for new or more of what is already great without getting rid of the shit that weighs you down. Sometimes you didn’t know it was weighing you down because it’s the stuff you liked or didn’t mind doing. 

That’s why you’ll see a donate pile out on the front lawn for things that have served me well and I enjoyed doing that I am no longer in need of or going to be doing. I don’t have to do anything. I certainly don’t have to do it all and I don’t have to do it for everyone. 

Beyond that out on the curb is a trash bag full of things I’ve allowed in my space or to grow inside of me that are no good for me or anyone else and can’t and shouldn’t be recycled or reused. 

Even though I’ve always been my home and at home with myself, being beyond middle age somehow feels like being even *more* at home. Like sinking into the most comfortable chair and feeling damn good doing it despite the vague feeling like you’re not supposed to enjoy it?

And the weird sensation that you are simultaneously the person sinking into the chair and the chair itself. You’re sitting in a room you’ve designed for your maximum comfort and efficiency, looking out fondly on the things that served you well but are but no longer need out on the lawn, with the broken down shit almost out of sight on the curb. You’re free to ignore all of that because it’s someone else’s thing now and you can bounce around the big space you’ve cleared out. You have so much room to see everything from every angle; more energy to continue to narrow down, prioritize, and focus on what you really want from the next part of life.